Skulls and Shackles: Wormwood Mutiny
by JackBivouac
Summary: Based on a Paizo Open Game Content campaign of the Skulls and Shackles: Wormwood Mutiny Pathfinder Adventure Path where the PCs try to sleep with everyone. Contains OC PCs, canon NPCs (mostly pirates), and spoilers. Come sail with them on the high seas in the world of Golarion! Rated M for: violence, bondage, language, sex (ch.3,5,8,16...)
1. Chapter 1

Skulls and Shackles: Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 1: Drinks on Me

A cool night breeze, stiff with the salt of the sea, pushed the rotted, paint-chipped sign depicting a muscular maid benchpressing an entire galleon. Ana Perya winced at the rusted squeak of its hinges. She stopped to one side of the door to the Formidably Maid, waiting, but the air was full of breezes that night. The sign kept swinging, kept squeaking. For her trouble, a rowdy pair of a red-headed woman and a blond youth shoved Ana back and against the coquina wall in their apparent race to the door.

An involuntary yelp leaped from Ana's mouth as one moon blue hand smacked the sharp, cockleshell wall to steady herself. Her almond-shaped eyes, pure white and pupil-less, widened and watered. The samsaran glanced down at the filth-capped, piss-stained cobblestones at the foot of the wall. It could've been worse.

Ana straightened up with a shaky sigh, drew her cloak closer around her moon blue face, and entered the Formidably Maid herself. Clouds of tobacco, raucous speech, and jaunty music assaulted her senses, but she made sure to step out of the way of the door-fortunate. The door swung open into the space she had just occupied to let through a hooded man clanking softly as he walked.

While she waited for her eyes to adjust to the tavern's dim, lantern lighting, she scanned the tables for her contact. She'd met the man after arriving in Port Peril mere hours ago. The peek of a parchment scroll tucked into the inner lining of a long coat drew her gaze. Even sitting, the slender, sun-browned man in the coat seemed to sprawl in all directions. Her eyes must have scrutinized him too heavily because he turned over his shoulder. He grinned at her with a mouth full of golden teeth over a black, braided beard. Scourge. That was his name.

Ana swallowed uneasily, but the map in his coat wouldn't simply fall into her waiting hands. She raised her cloak safely off the sticky floor under her sturdy boots and skirted her way around to Scourge's table where two large tankards foamed at the mouth. The man's pitch black eyes roved up and down the curves that even her practical exploring gear failed to hide. "You came."

Her cheeks darkened with a purple blush. She sat opposite him, both hands gripping either side of the seat of her chair. "You said you had a map to ruins of Ghol-Gan."

Scourge laughed amiably enough, but the corners of his grin seemed to sneer. "That's not how it's done in the Shackles, Lady Blue. See? I don't even know your name." He pushed one pungent tankard to her across the rough wood of the table and miraculously didn't spill any of it.

Ana attempted a smile of thanks and pried her hands off her chair. She lowered the hood of her cloak, her thick black hair swishing free over her shoulders. A blunt, precise fringe of bangs remained hanging above her pupiless eyes. She wrapped both hands around the tankard. The wood alone was heavy enough to knock a man cold-if it came to that-but the strong draught brought tears to her eyes and burned the whole way down. "Mmm," she squeaked, fighting down a coughing fit. "Thank you, Mr. Scourge. I apologize for my rudeness. My name's Ana Perya."

One of his black brows quirked upward at the squeak and stayed for the introduction. "First time out of the convent?"

She grimaced and blushed simultaneously. Many samsarans were devout worshippers, and she herself meditated on the teachings of Iro-Shu, but that was a little much. She took a longer sip from the tankard. "First time out of the college." She let her eyes drift around the room to prevent them from straying so desperately to the map in his coat.

She couldn't miss the red-headed woman. Tian in appearance, the olive-skinned woman stood on a tabletop and made exaggerated gestures at the cheering crowd who'd come to listen to her. The blond, sun-browned youth was one of them, one arm thrown over the shoulder of the half-orc woman with a prominent, jagged scar across her neck. The other arm lifted a foaming tankard to his mouth. Ana couldn't tell how much he'd actually managed to drink and how much doused the front of his light, vest and airy linens.

Secondhand embarrassment drove her gaze back to the depths of her own tankard. This was not her scene. "I...don't know how to do this. What do I do?"

Scourge fixed her with that not-so-nice grin. He pushed the second tankard across to her. "Relax. Drink some more."

Against her better judgment, she did.

Ana's head pounded as though struck over and over by hammer. The acidic taste of sick and vomit lingered in her dry mouth and throat. Her cheek pressed flat against hard and sticky wood. The whole room swayed under her, creaking, creaking, creaking unceasing.

She grumbled hoarsely and turned onto her back, pinning both arms under her. Her eyes snapped open. She strained and grunted, but unyielding rope bound her arms to her sides and her wrists behind her back. Chain clanked and restricted her feet as they kicked kicked-metal shackles weighted her boots.

Ana panted, her breath short and overheated. A cold sweat broke over her helpless body. She almost screamed out. Almost. She didn't recognized this dark, damp, and filthy wooden room, but she'd grown accustomed to this rocking and inured to the incessant creaking during the long sea voyage to Port Peril.

Instead of screaming, she turned onto her side to see more of the room than its ceiling. She was not alone. The red-headed woman, the blond youth, and a man with a shock of prematurely grayed hair, all similarly bound and shackled, had been tossed haphazardly in here with her. The blond youth snored softly, blissfully oblivious, on the floor beside her. The red-headed woman and the grayed man had been left shoulder-to-shoulder in a corner. The two began to stir, black and tawny eyes flickering open respectively. "Where-"

Several pairs of heavy footfalls sounded in the hall. They stopped outside the door. Metal clinked. The door's lock clunked. Ana shut her eyes against the harsh, spearing light of a hand-held lantern. A whip cracked. A deep male voice grunted low in pain. Staccato laughter punched hope-sucking holes into the damp air. "Get 'em topside."

Rough, calloused hands grabbed Ana by the rope and shoulder and hauled her up to her shackled feet. The hard butt of a sap prodded her in the back. Half-blinded, she staggered forward only for her knees to give out under her. She thudded to the wooden floorboards, face stinging from the fall. The hard, heavy sap came down on her back. She cried out at the sudden shock of pain. Down came the sap, heavier. Her eyes, nearly adjusted to the light, filled with hot, obscuring tears. Someone yanked her back to her feet. The sap prodded. Head down, the black wings of her hair curtaining her face, she shuffled cautiously but unerringly forward.

The sailors, the pirates, took the four prisoners through damp creaking halls up to the main deck of the ship. A stiff, salted breeze blew the black wings of Ana's hair up and away from her face. She dared to raise her head under the early morning light. The ship, at least as large as the passenger vessel that took her from Tian Xia to Golarion, had already sailed into open waters with no land in sight.

Eclectically garbed pirates clustered at the ship's mainmast. She followed the turn of their heads to a higher deck where two figures stood. One was a broad, muscular Garundi man with a shaven head, a thick beard bound with gold rings, and an eye patch. The other was a younger, olive-skinned Tian man with a long black ponytail and carrying a nine-tailed whip with a well-worn handle.

The first stared right back. Ana's pupiless, almond-shaped eyes widened and she dropped her head, now pounding with both her fear-heightened pulse and a hangover.

"Glad you could join us." The older man's low voice boomed over the whole of the main deck. "Scourge, loose them."

A whip cracked just beside Ana's boots and more vulnerable legs. She jumped, chains clanking. A familiar voice rang out from the back, laughing. "You heard the captain."

A mildly sunburnt, auburn-haired woman wearing a feather in her tricorn hat, broke away from the group at the mainmast toward the prisoners. A ring of keys went sailing overhead. She caught them in one hand and went immediately to work unlocking the shackles.

"Thank-" Ana's hoarse thanks ended in a yelp as a strong hand yanked her backward and against a slender torso.

Scourge, the blackguard, leaned over her shoulder, his braided beard scratching the thin skin of her ear, her cheek, and her neck. She refused to look at him and let him see the fear in her eyes, but she could feel his sneering grin in the hot breath prickling her skin. His hand wrapped around her other side brandishing a dagger. He slit the ropes binding her arms to her sides in a single stroke.

Ana sagged forward at the sudden release. But she was not free. He caught her by the rope around her wrists. By the single finger snagging the bindings, he tugged and forced her to step back into him. His laugh carried straight from his chest into her back and shoulders as he snicked the dagger through the ropes.

Immediately, Ana sidestepped away from Scourge toward the three other prisoners. The gray haired man, strikingly pale in the daylight, shifted to place himself between her and Scourge. Her cheeks darkened purple realizing that the man and likely everyone else had seen Scourge shamefully toying with her. She grimaced and concentrated on shaking feeling back into her pin-prickling wrists.

The captain, meanwhile, continued his address:

"Better. Welcome to the Wormwood. My thanks for 'volunteering' to join my crew. I am Captain Barnabas Harrigan. Not that you will ever need to address me. I have only one rule—-do not speak to me. I tell you what to do and you do it.

"Now. Even with you new recruits, we are still short-handed, so there will be no killing. If any of you are caught even whispering murder in your sleep, consider yourself keelhauled."

He turned to the man with the nine-tailed whip beside him and casually slapped his shoulder with a staggering strength. "Mr. Plugg-you have your landlubbers. Turn them into Wormwood pirates. The rest of you-back to work."

The crew jumped into action at the captain's command, rushing off to their posts. Scourge brushed Ana's arm as he passed. She shuddered. But in her heart, she vowed that if she ever found a way to kill him without hurting her chances of survival, he would be as good as dead.


	2. Chapter 2

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 2: The Long Haul

Mr. Plugg tripped lightly down the stairs from the upper to the maindeck and over to Ana and the three other newly press-ganged members of the Wormwood. The first mate was even younger than he had appeared at a distance, only a few years old than the blond youth. Except for the long black braid, the top of his head was meticulously clean-shaven. He wore an immaculate navy coat open over his bare chest, every pearl button otherwise in perfect order. He addressed them with a grimace. "I assume you have names."

The tall, thick-set woman with red hair to one side of Ana stepped forward brightly, smiling ear to ear as though she hadn't just been cuffed and prodded like an animal minutes earlier. "My name's Vela Searu, entertainer extraordinaire." Vela stepped back and kept grinning into the silence that followed, but she glanced over her shoulder at Ana and others with the slightest nod of desperate encouragement.

The blond youth, no older than eighteen, stepped forward and shouted, "I'm Carrog Marei."

Mr. Plugg's mirthless black eyes narrowed at the volume, grimace deepening. "Are you deaf or are you stupid?"

Carrog's brilliant blue eyes darkened and a deep red flush spread over his sun-browned face. "Just stupid, I guess," he growled at the same volume as before.

The samsaran bit back a small smile and stepped forward. "My name's Ana Perya. Sir."

The pale, gray-haired man stepped up beside her. "Essig Bhel, mercenary."

"I don't care who or what you were in the past-you're all pirates of the Wormwood now, pirates at the bottom rung of the ladder. Let's see where to put you." He brandished his nine-tailed whip and pointed by the handle to the rigging of the mainmast. "Climb to the crow's nest."

Vela shot off to the rigging, red hair whipping behind her. Carrog glanced at the others then stumbled after her. Ana shook her head at the abruptness of it all and turned to observe Essig's reaction.

The nine-tailed whip cracked across her chest. Ana cried out. The force of the blow knocked her back hard onto her ass. She crossed her arms protectively over her face and chest. The nine tails had torn through the fabric of her shirt where they'd struck, revealing purple welts on the moon blue skin of her bosom.

"What in the Nine Hells are you doing?" asked Mr. Plugg in a low, frigid fury. "Move." He struck at her again.

Ana cried as the tails whipped and tore across her thighs. She scrabbled backward without seeing, eyes blinded by tears. She crawled onto her hands and knees to push herself up to her feet. Too slow. The whip cracked across her sap-bruised and beaten back. Though sobbing in pain, she forced herself up to avoid another beating, back to Mr. Plugg.

He grabbed her by the back of her collar and swung her around to face the mainmast before releasing her. Ana choked and coughed, but stayed on her feet. Carrog, the first down from the rigging, ran over to them but kept out of arm's and whip's reach.

Mr. Plugg, olive skin shining in a light sweat, gave Carrog a curt nod. "You're a rigger and you work for me. Now line up." The first mate tapped his fingers against the handle of his whip, but he didn't have to wait long. He pointed the well-worn handle at Essig at the end of the line. "Chelaxian, can you cook?"

Essig's tawny eyes blinked at the question, but he nodded. "Yeah."

"You're a cook's mate. Go report to Ambrose Kroop in the galley. You know where to find the galley?"

"Yeah." The Chelaxian mercenary had apparently paid more attention to the ship's layout during their walk through the decks than Ana had. He headed off for the galley.

Mr. Plugg fixed his mirthless black gaze on Ana and Vela. "The two of you are swabs." He snapped his fingers. From a small group of seven colorfully garbed but stern-faced pirates at the railing strode the black-bearded Scourge. He bared his golden teeth in a sneering grin. "Master Scourge, they're all yours."

The first mate took Carrog off with him, leaving Ana and Vela with the invariably worse supervisor. Scourge placed two slender fingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly. "Swabs, assemble!"

Pirates swarmed from all directions, jostling Ana and Vela to gather in front of Master Scourge. Ana's pearl white eyes flitted from pirate to pirate and landed everywhere but on the gold-toothed blackguard. Beside her was the mildly sunburnt woman with auburn hair who'd unlocked their manacles-the woman's dark green eyes met hers, and she shot Ana a small, quick smile.

There was a muscular halfling woman with gold hoops in her ears and a bright red scarf around her neck, a lean, violet-eyed Varisian man with a blue scarf tied around his shaven head, a bedraggled gnome with one eye, and a lad younger than Carrog with tattoos up and down both scrawny arms.

Six, Ana recognized from the group that had been around Master Scourge at the ship's rail: a woman radiating a cloud of pungent rum, an old half-elf who'd shaved her gray hair into stripes, a Mwangi woman a foot and a half taller than Vela, a jaundice-eyed half-orc of the same towering height, a sun-browned woman who'd makeup-ed her face into a deathly pallor, and a fat man as wide as he was tall with a shaved head. The six were likely the same ones who Master Scourge took to get them up from that small, damp room in the hold, his lackeys. Six to avoid.

The crowd of swabs thinned as Master Scourge barked out assignments, each leaving for their station. Only Ana, Vela, and the auburn-haired woman remained. He jerked a thumb at a corner under the stair to the upper deck occupied by pails, scrub brushes, and sandstone blocks. "Swab the decks, swabs."

They mopped and scrubbed the upper, main, middle, and lower decks. The backbreaking labor drained Ana of every last ounce of strength until her limbs turned to lead, but she was glad of the company. Sandara Quinn, a recently press-ganged cleric of Besmara, was nothing but helpful, showing Ana and Vela the ropes and even quietly using her divine gift to heal the wounds from Ana's beatings.

They finished at dusk and returned to the main deck at the ringing of the ship's bell. The entire crew had gathered on the main deck. Ana and Vela both turned to Sandara, whose increasingly sunburned face blanched past its original, delicate pallor. "The Bloody Hour," she breathed.

A man, quietly blubbering, stood between the tall, slender Master Scourge and the younger, shorter Mr. Plugg. The perpetually grimacing first mate held a line of rope tied around the blubbering man's waist. Master Scourge walked the man to the railing. One moment the two stood facing each other. The next, Master Scourge knocked the man overboard with a single, back-handed blow to the head. He screamed as he fell.

Mr. Plugg, holding the rope with one hand, tugged the line through a series of pulleys. He took a slow walk, the rope dragging the victim even slower under the barnacle-crusted keel of the Wormwood. He walked twelve turns and stopped.

Ana's gut clenched at the end of the twelfth turn. Mr. Plugg handed the line to Master Scourge, who hauled a faceless, bloody mess of shreds hanging off a human frame. Ana gasped involuntarily. Vela doubled over, gagging. The Tian woman ran to the railing to vomit.

"What did he do?" Ana asked Sandara, her voice tight and strained.

"They caught him stealing from the quartermaster's store."

Master Scourge let the body hang above the rail for a few good minutes, dripping reddened seawater and gristle. He cracked his whip at the rope. It snapped. The remains of the thief dropped away into the sea with a final splash.

Master Scourge looked over the crowd, sneering his golden grin. His pitch black eyes met Ana's and his grin widened. She looked away, her deadened limbs shaking not with fear but resolve. She would bide her time. She would not get caught.


	3. Chapter 3

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 3: The Night Trade

The pale, prematurely grayed Essig stood beside a large, fat man only five feet tall in a soiled chef's hat and apron, Ambrose 'Fishguts' Kroop. The ship's cook knocked back swig after swig of rum while Essig ladled out savory stew from a great iron cauldron to the waiting pirates.

The pirates shoved the newly press-ganged three to the back of the clamoring crowd. After Essig filled her bowl, Ana stood off to the side and waited. Vela gave her a wavering smile and joined her, looking expectantly at Carrog. He hadn't stopped frowning since the execution. He walked toward them but stopped to look back at Essig. "Are you off duty yet, Merc?"

"Am I?" Essig asked the cook.

The larger man barked a laugh and rapped the back of his knuckles against the rim of the cauldron. "Oh, aye. Be off with ya. I can get our iron dame back to the galley myself." He dropped the drained bottle of rum into the cauldron, where it landed with a smash, and waddled off with the empty cauldron, whistling a jaunty tune.

The four sat together with their bowls in their hands and their backs to the rail. The setting sun drew their shadows long out over the darkening sea. Only Essig managed more than a few mouthfuls. The other three barely picked at their stew, its warmth dying in their hands. Vela broke the silence with a quiet question. "Did you make this?"

Essig's tawny eyes flicked to everyone's untouched bowls. "Yeah."

They fell back into a second and more awkward silence.

Ana hadn't been able to eat and finally gave up tossing and turning for sleep. She sat up in her gritty hammock, ropes creaking as loud as croaking frogs. Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes searched the hold for any sign of movement from the hammocks by the light of the portholes.

Sixteen pillars supported the deck above this spacious hold. None of the officers slept here, but the rest of the crew tied their hammocks between the walls and pillars. They would wake at dawn. Ana couldn't imagine that they would appreciate waking any earlier.

She waited for the ship to roll with a wave. As it did, every hammock creaked in soft unison. She slipped down from the hammock. The bare soles of her feet landed lightly onto the deck. She released her breath in a soft, slow exhale and waited for the next roll. When the ropes creaked, she padded along the wall of the ship to the stairwell and the middle deck.

Behind her and between the upper and lower stairs stood the trunk of the mainmast, surrounded by barrels and ballistas. Pigs in iron cages grunted and snored in their sleep. Large wooden crates piled along the walls. Across the cargo hold stood the foremast, the damped, cramped hold where she and the others had been kept the night before, the wall of the cook's room jutting out behind its corner, and the door to the galley at the far end. If Sandara was right, all of their belongings had been taken to a storeroom inside the galley.

Ana stayed as close as she could to the wall opposite the pig cages and inched her way toward the galley. She made it to the corner of the wall and the damp hold, resting her back and sweating palms against the solid, creaking wood. She looked back over her shoulder at the upper and lower stairs. There was no one in sight or sound. After a shuddering breath, she stepped out from the wall, her eyes on the galley wall ahead.

Metal clanked. A shadow lurched from the foremast. Ana leaped back against the ship's wall. Both moon blue hands clamped over her mouth to stifle her scream. Her heart pounded against the bones of her ribcage. But the shadow moved no more. As her pulse returned to normal, she heard a human snore over her rushing blood. She braced herself against the corner and leaned toward the foremast.

A large man covered in stinking filth and molding feathers slept on his back under the foremast. A short chain attached him to its trunk by the thick, heavy collar around his neck. As though he were nothing but a massive guard dog.

Ana's mouth twitched, hands clenching into fists. She wondered if Master Scourge had bound the man here. Perhaps Mr. Plugg.

A hand clamped around her shoulder. They shoved her chest-first against the wall of the hold, one arm wrenched behind her back. Her skin prickled as the attacker leaned in by her ear, their muscle heavy and solid against her back. "Don't scream."

Ana's compressed lungs could barely draw a ragged breath let alone scream. She managed a nod. They pulled off her back and released her arm and shoulder, hands moving instead to either side of her shoulders. She turned around to see the lean, olive-skinned Varisian man in the blue scarf keeping her trapped against the wall. She looked away from his narrowed, piercing gaze at the wooden floorboards. That way, he couldn't see the panic in her pupiless eyes as her brain scrambled to find any plausible excuse for her being here.

"What the Hells is in that storeroom that's worth a keelhauling?"

She grimaced at the memory of the thief's ribboned and shredded corpse. It was a nasty way to go, but her faith and very being as a samsaran testified that death was simply a doorway. "I'm an oracle, but I need my spell components to cast properly."

The man dropped his scarf-wrapped forehead against the wall over her shoulder. "So you _are_ a thief."

"I haven't actually stolen anything."

"You think that's gonna matter to Mr. Plugg?"

She pried her gaze off the floor to look at him as best as she could. He smelled of soap and smoke and musk but not of liquor, likely the watch for tonight. "You don't have to tell him?"

He straightened up off the wall, violet eyes still narrowed and unimpressed, arms folding across his chest. "You want my silence, you've got to pay a purchase."

Ana shook her head and chopped one hand toward the galley and storeroom inside. "I have nothing-everything's in there."

He looked at the storeroom. Then at the rafters of the ceiling. One hand rubbed the back of his clean-shaven neck.

Ana closed her eyes and let out a long sigh. "Put your hands on my head. Keep them there."

Keeping his eyes on the ceiling, he placed one hand on either side of her head, taking her smooth black hair between his fingers. Ana rested her palms against his chest. They warmed from the heat of his wiry muscle through the thin fabric of his shirt. She opened one eye to glance at the man chained to the foremast for any signs of waking. There were none. She turned back to the man in front of her. His eyes edged away from the ceiling to meet hers, wide enough to take ten years off his thirty-something-year-old face.

Ana had next to no experience with genitalia in this life, but one or more than one of her past lives seemed to have had plenty. She gave him a smile and sank down to her knees, dragging her fingers down the lean stretch of his torso. She felt his breath quicken through her fingertips.

The samsaran unbuckled his belt. He had risen but wasn't yet hard. She leaned forward and nuzzled him with her nose through the fabric of his underwear. The man lifted one hand off the side of her head. She pulled away from his building heat and shook her head, the ends of her smile curling with mischief. His face returned the smile on reflex and his hand to its place.

Ana took the hem of his underwear between her teeth and snagged it down. She licked him from the balls to tip. One hand worked his shaft and the rim of his head. The other toyed with his balls. Her middle finger pressed his perineum, the center of his Root chakra, encouraging the flow of sexual energy into him.

Her tongue licked and flicked him before she took his head to her lips and pushed him into her mouth. She continued to pump him with her hands while she stroked and sucked the dick in her mouth. She let him hit the back of her throat, moaning for him through her clamped lips.

"Fuck me," he groaned. His fingers knotted in her hair. He held her and thrust into her faster and faster until she could feel his dick pulsing against her tongue and throat. Her mouth filled his hot cum.

The man loosed his fingers from her hair and Ana dropped back onto her heels. The damp, musty air of the cargo hold cooled her burning, purple-flushed face. Her pearl white eyes met his. She slid her tongue over her tender lower lip. "Do you want to kiss me?"

He pulled her up to him, onto her tiptoes. She fell against him as he kissed her. His arms only tightened around her like a drowning man's around flotsam. He tasted of bitter smoke. She tasted of his dick and bitter cum. They broke apart, breathing hard but keeping their voices low.

The man slumped against the ship's wall and slid down to a seat on the floor of the cargo hold. Ana leaned back against the wall of the damp, cramped hold. He rolled paper and herbs into a cigarette, his supple fingers moving with precision. "Do you want a smoke?"

She shook her head. Not in this life.

He took a long drag and exhaled smoke from both nostrils, dragon-like. "I'm guessing this was just a one-time thing."

"I'm not opposed to trading."

His mouth tweaked into a half-smile. "Can I hold you?"

"Don't get hard again." At least she knew the deck had been recently swabbed. She sat on the floor beside him.

He hooked an arm and a leg around her and scooted her into his lap. He exhaled another cloud before resting his head against her neck and shoulder, nose and mouth to her skin.

"Are you always like this? With your...partners?"

Her back shook with the laughter from his chest. Unlike with Master Scourge, the transfer didn't make her sick. "I've been charged extra for cuddling before. But it's a matter of chance. Been stuck on this ship almost a month-yeah, new recruits don't get leave until Mr. Plugg gives it."

"You can't slip away when the ship docks?"

"What's your name?"

"Ana Perya."

"Not unless you've a death wish, Ana Perya. Enough of Mr. Plugg's rig dogs and Master Scourge's loyals stay back to guard the ship and make like Hell for deserters."

She shut her eyes and dropped her head back. It bumped against the warm, solid chest she'd briefly forgotten was behind her. A single word took form in the back of her mind: mutiny.


	4. Chapter 4

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 4: A Pirate's Life Is Not for Me

It seemed Ana had only just dropped into her hammock when the ship's bell rang in the dawn. She kept her eyes shut on the off chance that it had all been a dream, a horrible, indigestion-induced dream from cheap ale at the Formidably Maid.

"Ana! Ana!" Vela.

Ana sat up, hair falling in black tangles and smelling of cigarettes. Vela stood beside her hammock, delicate brows furrowed with worry. Pirates on route to the stairs jostled Carrog and Essig who waited at a nearby pillar.

"Right. Sorry," she mumbled, clambering out of the hammock. She dragged her fingers through her hair and followed after Vela's booted heels. She bumped into the red-headed woman, who'd come to an abrupt stop.

Four pirates blocked their way to the stairs. Ana recognized the sun-browned woman who'd painted her face into a corpse-like pallor, the towering, jaundice-eyed half-orc, and the fat man as wide as he was tall. The scraggly-haired woman with a crooked, nearly askew grin was likely one of Mr. Plugg's riggers. Those pirates who hadn't made their way up the stairs backed away from the two groups of four, forming a loose ring of loiterers.

The grinner shoved Carrog back a step. "In a hurry?" she cackled.

The half-orc swaggered forward beside her. "Crimson says some new recruit gave his cock a real good blow last night."

Carrog and Essig looked at each other. They shook their heads. Their blue and tawny eyes followed Vela's to Ana. Her cheeks burned purple.

The half-orc lowered his face to hers until her nose stung with the rum already on his breath. "We're here for ours, slut."

Ana, Vela, Carrog, and Essig punched as one. Ana, Vela, and Essig all swung for the half-orc and all missed. Carrog, however, punched the woman who'd shoved him right in the nose. Cartilage snapped. She roared, splattering blood everywhere.

The four hostile pirates charged in swinging. The woman with the bloody nose cracked her fist against Carrog's cheek. The half-orc in front of Ana head-butted her. Stars burst in her vision.

Vela kicked the half-orc in the crotch. He screamed. Essig slammed his fist into the side of his face. The half-orc dropped to the ground. Carrog whipped his elbow across his body into the woman's temple. Blood splattered as she fell.

The makeup-ed woman and the fat man were not phased enough to stop swinging but enough to swing wide. Ana roared at them. She scratched the makeup-ed woman across the face. Essig punched her in the side of the ribs as she came at them. She fell to the ground coughing and gasping for air. Carrog snapped a front kick into the fat man's belly but didn't stop him.

Instead, the fat man snarled and drew a dagger. Carrog threw his arms over his face. The blade slashed one forearm open and bloody. Vela snarled and spun her booted heel into the man's temple. He staggered. He dropped. His dagger slid across the bloodied deck.

The loose circle of onlookers broke into clamoring cheers. Ana barely heard them over the blood rushing in her ears. Her eyes fixed firmly on the dagger. They flicked up to meet Vela's, the closest to the blade. Ana gave her the slightest nod. Vela casually placed one boot over the dagger and slid it under her.

Before it had the chance to fade out, the cheering died. Immaculate, polished boots came down the doors. Mr. Plugg. He and his perpetual grimace were accompanied by an old dwarf with a nose enlarged by rum and multiple breaks, a broad-shouldered Rahadoumi taking lessons in scowling from his boss, a long-armed, rodent-faced halfling, and a barefoot woman with a face frozen in boredom.

Mr. Plugg cast his mirthless black eyes around the room, meeting each and every pair that remained within. "You're tardy. Report to the main deck for three lashes. Immediately."

"Take off your shirt."

Ana, standing in front of the mainmast, shut her eyes. Her cheeks burned purple. She could still feel the stares of the onlooking pirates and, worse, those who'd been whipped before her.

She clenched her teeth. Instead of undoing the buttons, she crossed her arms over her sides. She gripped the lower hem of her already torn shirt and flipped it up over her head in one motion. She dropped it by her feet.

"Place your hands on the mast."

Ana leaned forward to brace herself only to feel her bosom cup against her breastband. Her eyes snapped open in panic. She turned over her moon blue shoulder at Mr. Plugg. "Wait!"

His body shone with the sweat of the previous whippings. "One." He cracked the nine-tailed whip without a flicker of emotion.

Ana gasped, her breath hitching in pain.

"Two."

The tails ripped tears through the raw skin of her back. She cried out, tears welling in her pupiless eyes. Thick, hot blood as clear as crystal oozed from the opened wounds. Her breastband landed in the blurred area of her vision.

"Three."

Ana fell onto her hands and knees, sobbing both in pain and relief. Her crystalline blood seeped into the waist of her pants. She hugged her arms around her shuddering chest.

A cool shadow stretched across her back and face. The samsaran's fingernails dug into the moon blue skin of her arms as her clenched involuntarily. Her head turned in small jerks to meet Mr. Plugg's sweat-slicked face of stone.

"You get three more. For impertinence. Place your hands on the mast."

Her teeth chattered as she struggled to spit out her words. "I-I can't take three more."

His grip tightened around the handle of his whip. The tails cracked against her face, neck, and chest. She hit the deck, curled on her side. She couldn't hear the count over her own sobbing. The tails whipped across her arm and side. And again, drawing crystal clear blood.

Calloused hands dragged Ana to her feet. Her knees collapsed under her. She fell into someone soft. Vela. Vela, who had also been whipped, and Sandara. They held her from either side. Her head dropped to her chest, the black wings of her hair swinging over her face. She let Vela and Sandara lead her into the shadow of the sails and into a rookery of piled and tangled rope.

Vela helped Ana sit. Sandara placed her hands on Ana's shoulders with a whispered prayer to Besmara. Cool, healing energy spread from Sandara's fingertips through Ana's back toward every wound. "We need to untie the ropes," she murmured, "recoil them, then move them down to the cargo hold."

Vela guide one of Ana's hands through the sleeve of the shirt she'd discarded for the whipping. She drew it gently across Ana's sore but no longer bleeding back. The other arm followed. Ana managed to fumble the buttons closed herself.

The three worked for hours without another word. The rope slipped and burned Ana's sweaty hands. Her fingers swelled. She crouched in the shrinking shadow of the sails and shook out the heat and stiffness. After a quick check to make sure that neither Mr. Plugg nor Master Scourge were in sight, Vela and Sandara crouched with her behind the piles of rope.

Ana broke the silence with a dry-mouthed croak. "Who's that man in the cargo hold?"

"Owlbear Hartshorn," said Sandara, voice low, "Mr. Plugg's 'pet.'"

They lapsed into a much shorter silence. "So you really gave some guy a blowjob last night?" asked Vela.

"He caught me trying to steal. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You're lucky it was Crimson," said Sandara.

Ana frowned. Crimson hadn't been able to keep his mouth shut. "Lucky how?"

"He's handsome," she giggled.

The samsaran shook her head. Handsome wasn't going to cut it.

"Wait. Wait," said Vela, flapping her hands as discretely as possible. "You tried to steal? After...after..." Vela and Sandara stared at her.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Yeah, would've worked on me," said Carrog.

Essig shrugged and nodded placidly over his bowl of chowder.

"I mean, I wouldn't say no if a hot blue lady wanted to go down on me," said Vela through a mouthful of the evening meal.

The four sat with the backs to the rail where they had yesterday. Ana held her bowl gingerly in two hands, both too deadened and aching to hold the bowl on their own. Carrog and Essig leaned forward to keep their whipped backs off the wood. Sandara had used up all her healing on herself, Vela, and Ana. That, and the cleric might not have known Carrog or Essig.

"I think...we should try making friends with as many pirates as we can," said Ana.

"That's one way to do it," said Essig. Vela gave his shoulder a quick punch. "Ouch."

The red-headed woman lowered her voice. "Are you planning something or something?"

"That depends if you want to get off this ship." Black, blue, tawny, and white eyes exchanged glances. There was unanimous, unspoken agreement. Ana nodded slow and laid it out for them. "We're not the only new recruits. There's Crimson, the guy from last night, Sandara, judging from her recent sunburns, and possibly others.

"When the ship docks, we're stuck on board with a group of guards while the others get shore leave. If we were to work together…"

"We'll need weapons," said Essig.

"I'm a witch who can't cast," said Carrog.

Vela nodded. "I'm a bard-I need my spell components, too."

"I might've opened up a barter system with one of the guards. We just have to wait until he's on rotation again. Until then, finding other new recruits or guards willing to turn a blind eye would be helpful."

They finished their bowls in silence tense with coiled energy and brought them to the barebones washing station. A long rope attached a wooden pail to the ship's railing to allow the pirates to draw water from the sea. The four had walked over so quickly that Ana didn't realize that she recognized the pirate at the washing station until it was too late.

The blue-scarved Varisian man's violet eyes met hers. The back of his neck flushed bright red. He rubbed one hand against it, face cringing.

Vela, Carrog, and Essig stepped away to look at Ana. A stiff, salted breeze blew her black hair up off her face and the purple blush in her cheeks. Eyes wide and nowhere to hide, she gave Crimson a small, tight wave. She set her shoulders and walked up to him and the bucket. She threw it into the sea.

"Uh, let me help you," he said, scrambling either for the rope or something to do.

She flexed and unflexed her fingers around the empty bowl. "Thanks. Crimson." Ana had a full view as the back of his neck reddened again.

He turned around, still looking over the rail, and passed her the pail. "Yeah, that's my pirate name, apparently."

"What's your other name?"

"Cogward. Sorry about earlier." He walked off in a hurry, blazing from the back of his neck.


	5. Chapter 5

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 5: Tatters and Stitches

It was only Ana's third day aboard the _Wormwood_ , but she could've sworn she'd been here for one hellish eternity. At least she and the three other new recruits had been on time today. One less lashing to worry about. She kept her head down, pupiless eyes fixed on Master Scourge's boots. She could still feel the weight of his leering eyes and the sneer of his grin.

"You're working for me today, Ana. You take and deliver messages from us officers, understand? Now go find Mr. Plugg and ask him if he's finished reviewing the last inventory report. Run, runner." His whip cracked by her feet.

The samsaran jumped, nearly out of her blue skin, both at the sound and the phantom pains that erupted everywhere a whip's tail had landed. She took off as fast as her feet would carry her and only stopped to look for Mr. Plugg after ducking behind the mainmast.

She spotted him in his immaculate navy coat on the raised deck 15 feet above the main deck, the poop deck. The mizzenmast stood there, rising 30 feet above the poop deck. The ship's bridge protruded forward from the mizzenmast. The captain was not at the wheel. According to Sandara, she wouldn't have been allowed onto the poop deck if he was.

Ana still ran as quickly and as cautiously as she could across the main deck. She stopped at the top of the stairs.

Mr. Plugg didn't bother to turn away from the railing and the endless sea beyond. "Speak."

"Master Scourge wants to know if you've reviewed the last inventory report." An iron cage hanging from the side of the mizzenmast drew her eye. It swayed cradle-like above the deck with contents anything but. A body rotted within its iron bars. Only the sea breezes kept its stench from permeating this deck and the main deck below. A bedraggled parrot that appeared to lose feathers with every cock of its head perched atop the cage. Its beady eyes met Ana's with a squawk.

"Tell him I haven't."

"How far have you gotten?"

One mirthless black eye pierced her over the shoulder of the first mate's jacket. "You have your message. Now, run."

Ana clenched her teeth and took off for Master Scourge at the far end of the main deck. She delivered the reply breathlessly.

"Ask him how far he's gotten."

She stifled a groan and sprinted back to Mr. Plugg. Carrog climbed the mizzenmast, a coil of rope over one shoulder. He gave her a playful salute before turning to secure the rope around a metal cleat.

"I'm about halfway through."

She returned to Master Scourge in a light but full-body sweat.

"Ask him when he'll be finished."

Carrog now crouched in the rigging just above the cage. He leaned out with a corner of hard ship's bread in hand. The parrot cocked its head up in interest, dingy feathers falling onto the corpse in the cage.

"Another day or so."

Her sprint slowed noticeably. She had to support herself with her hands on her knees just to repeat Mr. Plugg's message back.

"Tell him to tell me as soon as he's done."

The moulting parrot perched on Carrog's finger, eating the biscuit straight from his hand. Carrog gave Ana a triumphant smile. She would've smiled back if not for the mirthless black eyes now fixed on her slumped, sweat-drenched body.

"Fine. Go find Officer Quarne. Tell him I've sent you."

"Where should I look for him?" asked Ana between panted breaths.

She guessed he'd grown bored of running her ragged because he spent the breath to direct her to the cargo hold.

Sunlight poured in through beams from the portholes, catching dust in their paths and deepening the shadows that had been present in the night. Sure enough, the man covered in filth and feathers was chained to the foremast. He sat up in a rattle of chains as Ana came down the stairs but only stared blankly when she gave him a small wave.

She walked gingerly through the deck, weaving around barrels, ropes, and crates as she searched the shadows for Officer Quarne. The pigs in their cages quieted for a moment and she heard it, wood shaving off under the touch of a knife. Her head snapped in its direction. In the shadows of piled crates, a short, dark-clothed figure bent over a raw, pale plank of wood across two barrels.

"Officer Quarne?"

The man turned. He was Drow, a night-skinned elf with short, errant strands of silver hair escaping from under a black bandana. Every feature of his face was dagger-sharp, not just the ears. Even the crooked, half-smile that failed to reach his eyes could've belonged to the business end of a blade. "Samsaran, you're interrupting me."

Ana froze, her face fighting off a cringe. "Sorry. Mr. Plugg sent me."

"A bit of a bastard, isn't he?"

"I...don't know how to answer that."

Officer Quarne's grin widened but never quite reached the other side of his face. His shoulders shook with a husky chuckle, raining sawdust onto the floorboards. "Either he is, or he isn't."

The ship's walls seemed to cocoon around Ana. Her gut dropped through the floor. Her arms spread at her sides, reaching for any support. They found only light and dust.

The drow approached one step at a time. Her feet, dead leaden, refused to move. Instead, she broke into a second, colder sweat. His sharp nose twitched. He stopped. "What do they call you?"

"Ana."

"How conventional. Sooner or later, most pirates receive another name."

"What's yours?"

"The Stitchman." He drew a sackcloth, yarn-haired doll from a pocket of his apron, starkly pale in his night-skinned fingers. He turned it to face her. Pins and needles stabbed the doll as thick as porcupine quills. "On account of being the _Wormwood_ 's surgeon as well as its carpenter. I might also be able to do something about your clothes."

Her cheeks burned in the darkness of the cargo hold. She didn't need to look to remember where Mr. Plugg's nine-tailed whip had torn the fabric to tatters below her collar and at her thighs. "I'd appreciate it." She blinked. "Wait, Mr. Plugg sent me to you to-" This time, she did glance down.

Officer Quarne's eyes and nose crinkled when he laughed, dry and dusty. "Yes, you're not up to standard. Follow me."

In a head-spinning, daylight recreation of her first night aboard the ship, the drow led her through the dusty light and shadow to the galley. He held the door for her and gestured with half a bow.

The cramped, rattling kitchen held two wooden worktables, several wooden cupboards, and two small stoves against the port wall, as well as every cooking utensil imaginable and a shining array of meat cleavers. Large cauldrons bubbled away atop both stoves. A score of clucking chickens and three bleating goats wandered freely through the dirt, food, and knives of the galley.

"Get that goat!" shouted the hefty chef at the stoves. He pointed a dripping ladle at a goat with the wooden handle of a knife between his teeth.

"Excuse me." Essig, now also sporting a stained apron, squeezed between Ana and Officer Quarne and launched himself at the hind legs of the knife-wielding goat.

It leaped nimbly out of reach with an impertinent bleat.

The drow cleared his throat. "Right. This way." He stepped over Essig toward a door between a set of cupboards and one highly used but never cleaned worktable. He rapped on the door with back of his knuckles. "You'd better not be masturbating in there-I've brought a customer."

"Don't give me any fucking ideas," boomed a loud, low voice that rattled the thin planks of the door.

After a few seconds pause, Officer Quarne pushed through the door. "Ana, Cut-Throat Grok, our lovely quartermaster. Grok, Ana."

A flushed, reedy half-orc with a huge scar across her neck leaned against a massive wall of barrels, boxes, and chests that blocked most of the light from the storeroom's only porthole. The notched head of a greataxe gleamed over her shoulder, and an array of throwing axes hung from her leather belt.

"I don't have any money." Everything she owned was already in the quartermaster's possession, as it were.

The drow closed the door behind them. "She's on Mr. Plugg's tab." He drew a graying measuring tape from an apron pocket, its lines splitting, branching, and fading into each other.

The half-orc snorted. "That cunt-sniffing sadist." Her brick red eyes gave Ana a once-over and latched onto the torn fabric over her cleavage. Her mouth split into a toothy grin. "Not that I blame him."

"Take off your clothes," said Officer Quarne. "All of them."

Grok's eyes followed the slide of Ana's pants, the tug of her shirt, and the slip of her underwear without ever leaving the samsaran's blue-skinned body. When the half-orc's gaze finally met hers, Ana smiled, slow and mischievous. Grok smiled back and pushed the approaching drow and his tape measure aside.

Officer Quarne opened his mouth as though to speak. Grok held up a finger with one arm. The other snaked around Ana's waist and pulled her into a tongue-twisting kiss. Ana moaned into the other woman's mouth. When they finally parted, breathing hard, the quartermaster only dropped to one knee to take her tongue to Ana's purple-flushed nipple.

"So, I'm just going to stand here and wait?" asked Officer Quarne, husky voice low and strangled.

Grok grunted noncommittally as she tossed clothes and weapons onto the boxes behind her. Ana looked at him over her shoulder through a half-lidded haze. "If you want in, take off your clothes." She smiled, biting her lip. "All of them."

Grok, now baring every inch of her green skin, slid her hands down Ana's curves to her hips. Ana wrapped her arms around the half-orc's. She pulled the woman in to kiss and suck her scarred throat. She squealed as Grok dug her nails into the smooth skin of her ass. The quartermaster leaned back to grin toothily. She slipped a hand around and between Ana's thighs. One finger stroked her lower lips with a feather-light brush.

Ana stepped back slowly enough for Grok to maintain the teasing rhythm and lightness between her legs. She backed into the silken skin and solid muscles of the drow's naked body. She kept stepping, gently but implacably forcing him back into a seat on a barrel against the storeroom wall.

Without missing a beat, Grok crouched, hooked her arms under Ana's thighs, and hoisted her up into Officer Quarne's lap. The half-orc sunk onto her knees and shifted Ana's hips to plant a slow, tonguing kiss between her legs. The samsaran gasped and squirmed on on Officer Quarne, thighs twitching and clasping around Grok's head.

Ana tried to reach behind her for the drow's rapidly stiffening dick, she only managed to scratch at his torso. He chuckled, dry and husky, and entwined his fingers with hers. He crossed her arms behind his back and kept them there as he began to kiss and suck the hard ridge of her jaw and the line of her neck. She whimpered and flailed in half-hearted protest, but Grok's tongue kneading circles around her clit sent her into a shuddering orgasm. She screamed her pleasure out.

Grok let out a triumphant, booming laugh. She slid Ana off Officer Quarne and the barrel onto the floor with her blue, sweat-slicked back to the boards. The half-orc straddled her between her legs and ground her clit-to-clit. The drow stepped over her, one leg on either side, and guided Grok's mouth onto his dick. Ana's back arched and her hips bucked wildly, helpless to the desire in her awakened sacrum. When Grok grunted and shuddered in orgasm on Ana's clit, she drew the samsaran into the waves of her ecstasy. The half-orc stuck her fingers into Ana's mouth, only partially to stifle her scream.

Grok rolled off onto the floor beside her. She removed her hand from Ana's mouth and inserted her wetted fingers into her own vagina with a grunt. The samsaran had to wrench her eyes away from the woman pleasuring herself, arms hugging her sides. The sexual energy seething from her sacral chakra was almost unbearable.

The drow kneeled in front of her, either still or newly erect. She draped her arms over his shoulders. When she spoke, her volume barely broke a whisper. "I need you to pick me up and fucking rail me."

Officer Quarne leaned in. His silver hair mingled with her black. His lips brushed hers. "Come here."

He slid his arms under her legs and scooped her up. The fear of being dropped took over, and Ana curled and clung to him, hands braced against his warm, powerful back and her legs wrapped around his narrow waist. He laughed dryly, reassuringly as he carried her toward a wall. Her upper back and shoulder blades pressed flat against the storeroom door. With his arms still under her hips and ass, he guided her down onto his dick.

She shivered as he pushed into her and the door rattled ever-so-slightly behind her. She flushed a deeper purple and tried to pull herself by her hands on his shoulders off the door and curled over him. But his hips rocked against hers, throwing her back with his thrust.

Ana shut her mouth against her own sound and braced her palms. He kept grinding and stroking, harder and faster, until she bucked and quaked against the rattling door each time he rammed her. Her constricting vagina guided his head straight to her sacral chakra. When his pubic bone crushed against her clit, it was too much. The samsaran screamed in shuddering orgasm.

"Fuck, Ana, fuck, can I cum?" he panted.

"Cum, cum, nnngh." She shook again, helplessly rattling the door.

Officer Quarne pulled out of her. His hot cum shot all over her sweating, blue stomach. Silver eyes met hers. The drow only half-smiled, but she could see it in his eyes.

He hoisted her gently off the door and lowered her onto her feet. Her knees collapsed under her, but he was there under her shoulder. Grok hurried to her other side. Together, they found her a place in the cramped storeroom to sit and lie back against a supporting chest. Officer Quarne sat not far beside her, cooling, and Grok sat across from them against her wall of storage containers.

The half-orc uncorked a bottle of rum with her teeth. She took a long swig before passing it around.

Ana took the smallest sip that she could. "Do you still need my measurements?"

Officer Quarne accepted the bottle from her but shook his head. "No, I got a good look."

"Same," said Grok with a toothy grin. "I've got some shit you can wear while you're waiting. Will that be all for today? Might be able to throw in a couple freebies with your order."

She looked directly at the quartermaster, avoiding Officer Quarne even in her peripheral vision before she lost her nerve. "Could you throw in three spell component pouches?"

Grok laughed, loud and booming. "Yeah, you little caster. Nobody'd give a rat's ass."

The bottle returned to the samsaran. This time, she sipped with a smile.


	6. Chapter 6

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 6: Tails

Ana exited the quartermaster's store in ill-fitting but untorn slacks tucked into her boots, a scratchy linen shirt, and a patched, faded coat cut off just above the waist and trailing a drizzle of loose threads. Essig and Ambrose the cook stared at her from opposite ends of the galley. The only sounds in the room bubbled up from the cauldrons, even the chickens and goats seeming to have been driven into silence by the activity behind the storeroom door.

The prematurely grayed Chelaxian cleared his throat. "Nice jacket."

The samsaran's cheeks flushed purple. "Thanks."

Essig and the cook immediately turned their attention to their workstations and their backs to her. Ambrose remained over the cauldrons. Essig chopped and diced at a wooden worktable. She caught a glimpse of the extraneous handle of a knife in his apron pocket. Knives and daggers afforded little protection but that made two allies armed.

Officer Quarne followed her briskly out of the galley and back into the dusted light and shadows of the middle deck. He shut the galley door behind them with equal speed. It was unlikely that he'd seen Essig's pocketed dagger.

"That'll be all," said the drow, breezily. "You should probably report back to our first mate post-haste."

"Right. Thank you, Officer Quarne." As she turned to go, his night-skinned fingertips caught hers. She looked back over her shoulder. Her pupiless eyes searched the inscrutable expression on his face, a division not in halves but a hundred different fragments.

Then his face resolved all into a half smile. He released her. "It was a pleasure, Ana."

Mr. Plugg didn't bother to turn from the ship's wheel to face her. He immediately threw her back to running needless distance for simple questions. At the end of the day, she'd sweated through every last inch of her ill-fitting clothes.

Ana collapsed against the ship's railing beside Vela, nearly spilling tonight's bowl of supper onto the second-hand threads. Essig sat beside Carrog at the other end of their line, the seat furthest from hers.

"Hey, check this out," said Carrog. He whistled a short, thin tune in D minor. The moulting parrot he'd fed on the mizzenmast flew from across the deck, shedding feathers in flight. It landed on his shoulder. Feathers fell into Carrog's bowl without his notice. Essig, however, looked to the bowl first, then the bird.

Vela, grinning ear to ear, playfully punched the opposite shoulder. "You made a friend!"

"Aye!" said Carrog. He screwed his face into an exaggerated scowl and squinted one bright blue eye at the parrot. "What'd you say your name was, pirate?"

"Call me Pluck, donkey-fucker," cawed the bird.

Carrog and Vela burst into riotous laughter. Ana and Essig paused before joining in. Neither looked the other in the eye. Their laughter sounded noticeably weaker to the samsaran's ear.

"Ah, Pluck, you salty, feathered bastard," said Carrog, nuzzling his nose against the parrot's chipped beak. "He's my familiar now."

"Speaking of-" Ana drew two, small pouches from the deep pockets of her trousers. She passed them down. "I was able to get spell component pouches from the quartermaster."

Vela frowned at her. "From the quartermaster. In broad daylight."

"She gave them to me."

"Why would she just give you two, three of these?" asked Carrog, fastening his pouch to the sash around his waist.

To his credit, Essig said nothing. Instead, he scarfed down his dinner in complete silence.

Ana hadn't planned on mentioned Officer Quarne, the Stitchman, but he came up when Carrog and Vela, mostly Vela, plied her for details. The samsaran kept her recount as vague as possible.

"Well," said Vela, "we can cast again, so I guess that wasn't a bad idea."

"And we didn't get whipped this time," said Essig, still avoiding any glance down her way.

"Will Grok and the Stitchman keep it quiet?" asked Carrog.

This time, all four pairs of eyes, black, blue, tawny, and white exchanged a look.

Apparently, not. The next morning, the first mate assigned all four of them to catch rats in the bilges, the bottom deck of the ship. "Don't bother coming back until every rat is dead."

The four tromped down the stairs to the crew berths on the lower deck. In the middle of the floor laid the trapdoor to the bilges. Essig grasped its rusty iron ring and wrenched it open. A damp, foul stench of rot, mold, and brackish water rushed up to greet them.

The Chelaxian's tawny eyes caught Ana's, and he gestured at the rusted rungs of the descending ladder. "After you."

The samsaran looked down into the swilling, stinking water below. She stripped off her jacket and tossed it onto a nearby hammock. The rest of her clothes, even her underwear and boots followed. Essig, Carrog, and Vela stared at her. Her moon blue cheeks flushed a slight purple, but she pointed down the hatch with unshakeable reason. "That's going to linger."

She took a deep breath of the relatively free air and took the climb. The bilges were dim, damp, and stinking with thick cobwebs in the rafters and dark, brackish water swilling up to her knees. A single bilge pump rested near the stern. Six sets of rusted or bloodied manacles had been fixed on the opposite end.

"Ass incoming!" cawed Pluck from Carrog's bare shoulder.

Ana stepped aside for her fellow victims of Mr. Plugg's ire, all of them in the buff. Vela sported a tattoo of a red fox across the entirety of her olive-skinned back. The bard winked at the samsaran when she caught her looking. Both she and Essig carried daggers in one hand. Essig's shoulder bore a brand she didn't recognize, a minimal, stylized scorpion. His tawny eyes never left the surface of the brackish water.

It was Vela, however, who plunged her dagger under the water. "There!"

Ana didn't see anything, but a red cloud bloomed where Vela had struck. Then razor-sharp teeth crunched down into the soft flesh of her calf. She cried out, kicking back defensively, but only succeeded in stirring her blood into the brackish water.

Carrog jumped and yelped a few feet away. He stomped around wildly, splashing everyone.

Vela gagged and howled. "Gah! It's in my mouth!"

Essig stabbed his dagger into brackish waters between them. A filthy rat the size of a small dog bobbed to the surface, no life left in its beady black eyes.

Ana recoiled a step. Onto a long, scabby tail. She ground her heel down and stomped with her other foot. Her heel made solid contact. A second rat floated to the surface. Vela slashed the tip of her dagger across its throat. "It wasn't dead, honest."

They killed six rats in total, dire rats. The carcasses floated and bobbed until Vela hung one from a set of manacles. The four exchanged a glance. The used all six sets.

To make sure they'd taken care of the infestation, they lined up along one wall with an arm's length between each of them. "Three, two, one-" They stalked forward through the brackish water, searching its murk with their bare feet.

The heat, stench, and exertion slowly sapped at Ana's energy. She didn't register the slight bump under one foot. She lifted the other foot. With the shift in her weight, the hard, rounded object shot out from under heel. Ana shrieked, arms windmilling for balance. She landed in the brackish water, drenching everyone with the splash.

There was a chorus of "Ah, fuck!"s. Carrog and Vela helped the sodden, dripping samsaran to her feet. Essig walked behind her. She turned over her blue shoulder to see him reach down into the water. He withdrew a slim but solid wooden club. He rose to his feet and held the club out to her at arm's length. "I think...this dropped you."

The corner of her mouth tweaked upward. "Thanks." Her tongue burned from the taste of the filthy water. She gagged but pulled the club to her chest. A weapon, and better yet, it was wooden.


	7. Chapter 7

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 7: A Brush with the Ring

Despite their multiple scrubbings at the washing station, the blige-stench lasted through the night and into the next day. Ana didn't mind as much as she'd expected. Their foul air had driven the crew away for privacy at the washing station and even Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg had kept a noticeable distance. Sandara was the first of the crew to re-approach Ana and Vela although the fact that Master Scourge had assigned the three to swab the decks that morning may have factored in.

Ana moved awkwardly, her club bumping up and down between her shoulder blades. Last night, Vela had helped her fashion a strap from excess material off her overlong trousers to keep the weapon on her back and within arm's reach. The strap loosened over the day, widening the club's range of motion. By the time Ana sat down with the others for supper, she couldn't lean against the railing. The club had left her back a mottled mapwork of bruises.

Vela took her finished bowl from her hands and passed it to Carrog. "Here." She piled her emptied bowl on top, then grabbed Ana's hand and pulled her to her feet. "You're coming with me, Miss Invalid."

They tromped down the stairs to the crew berths. They were the only ones on the lower deck. Ana faced the pillar nearest her hammock and removed her jacket and shirt. Only her new, black breast band and the strap for her club remained.

Vela whistled low behind the samsaran. "We need to get you a sheath on your belt because this is not gonna work."

"I won't be able to explain where I sudden got a club if someone asks." Based on Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg's cruelty and scrutiny of the past few days, one or both would ask. "Please, just tie it down a little tighter."

"Fine," sighed the red-headed woman. "This might hurt. Your back's pretty messed up."

"Thanks." Ana braced her hands against the sturdy wood of the pillar. She imagined the strength of its tree waking and flowing through its grain into her palms.

Vela loosened the strap that wrapped over and under Ana's chest. Her entire body relaxed from the sudden freedom of her ribcage. Vela placed one warm palm against her back. "Ready?"

"Rea-eep!" Her friend yanked the air from her lungs. Her chest strained against the deeper constriction above and below her breasts. To no avail. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. Only her hands against the pillar kept her upright. Ana looked back at Vela. "It's...too tight."

The red-headed woman's black eyes took a fleeting glance at Ana's bound, heaving bosom. A slight flush spread through her olive-skinned cheeks, but she shook her head. "It'll loosen up after you've worn it a while. Just don't make any sudden moves-you might pass out."

The samsaran nodded and retrieved her clothes. As the two tripped back up the stairs, Ana glimpsed an immaculately polished bootheel. She froze. Vela collided into her with a grunt. They fell in a tangle of limbs.

Mr. Plugg's mirthless black eyes narrowed at them from the deck above. The dwarf with the nose enlarged by multiple breaks and the scraggly haired woman with an almost unhinged grin flanked the first mate. Instead of the worn handle of his nine-tailed whip, a cat-o-nine-tails according to Sandara, Mr. Plugg held a length of chain. "Get up."

Ana and Vela exchanged a fearful glance. Vela pulled herself off of the samsaran and helped Ana to her feet to stand at stiff attention.

The chain in the first mate's hand held the large, filth and feathered covered man usually chained to the foremast at the end of its leash. Owlbear Hartshorn. The first mate turned on his shining heel, drawing the chained Owlbear behind him. The dwarf and the woman stood at the top of the stairs blocking Ana and Vela's way until Mr. Plugg had reached the main deck.

The woman shot a wad of spit on them. She laughed wildly and ran up the stairs. The dwarf sniffed, his upper lip raised in a snarl, and followed her up with a heavy, deliberate pace. Ana and Vela wiped their faces before heading up as well, a gnawing unease growing in Ana's gut. Whatever plans Mr. Plugg had for Owlbear, they were sure to be unpleasant.

A crowd had formed in a loose ring around Owlbear. Ana and Vela joined Carrog and Essig who stood a short ways off from the gathering. There was no time for questions or answers. The crowd parted for Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge, both approaching the four.

"We've got a treat for you new recruits." Master Scourge gave them a gold-toothed grin. "A bit of sport."

Mr. Plugg tossed a velvet pouch onto the boards of the deck without a flicker of emotion. Many coins clinked. "100 gold says my uncouth pet can beat any of you in a bare-knuckled brawl."

Ana glanced through the parting in the crowd at Owlbear. Despite his constant captivity, he was as muscled and hulking as any of the pirates, perhaps moreso. From what she'd seen of her companions in the bilges, the former mercenary Essig was the only one of them who stood a decent chance. He, Vela, and Carrog, however, looked at each other with equal uncertainty.

Ana took the deepest breath she could manage and stepped forward. "I-" Multiple tugs on her jacket forced her back and into the half-circle of her friends.

"Just because you have infinite lives doesn't mean you should throw this one away," Vela hissed.

Ana's blue cheeks flushed purple. The truth was more complicated, of course. If one full lifetime could be compared to a painting, then every time she reincarnated, the samsaran was a blank canvas splattered by the colored drops of the paintings that came before it.

Essig released his pinch on her jacket. He patted her shoulder in passing. "I'll take you up for 200."

"150," said Mr. Plugg. "And if you lose, you'll be given to Master Scourge as a pet of his own."

The pale Chelaxian pulled a face but dissolved it with a shrug just as fast. He unlatched his cloak and yanked off his shirt, throwing them down with same nonchalant gravity the first mate had shown the gold. "You're on."

He walked through the crowd. Ana, Vela, and Carrog hurried after him as the crowd closed into a ring. Essig took a ready stance in front of the hulking man. Owlbear roared wordlessly to the sunsetting heavens and threw up his fists.

A hush fell upon the crowd. Ana's skin prickled as the two combatants stared at each other. Then they moved, all at once. Essig's fist smacked under Owlbear's jaw. Owlbear's much meatier fist slammed against the side of Essig's face. The pale man spit bright red blood onto the deck.

Ana's hands clenched into fists. Essig stepped back into a ready stance, his feet sure on the gently rolling ring. Truly ready. At the first shift of Owlbear's weight, Essig came in like a lightning snake. His athletic body blurred. He must of landed a blow because Owlbear dropped back onto the deck, hard. The larger man's head lolled from side to side, eyes watering.

Essig stepped back, tawny eyes narrowed. Owlbear, sitting ass flat on the deck, blinked back tears. Crying wordlessly, he scooted back away from the mercenary.

Mr. Plugg slammed his shining bootheel against Owlbear's back, shoving the lunk back toward the ring. "Get back there and fight."

But the larger man held his ground, palms braced against the wooden boards of the deck. The crowd booed and jeered. "Kill him, Essig." "Finish him!" Ana's entire body tensed and coiled, but Vela and Carrog each grabbed hold of one arm, keeping her from stepping in.

The mercenary held up one hand. The crowd quieted. Even Mr. Plugg stopped kicking his 'pet' in the back. With a slow, calculated motion, Essig turned on his heel. The pirates parted for his as he walked back to the pouch of coins. He held it up for inspection. "Looks like your pet couldn't beat me." His tawny eyes narrowed on Mr. Plugg. "And you're 50 gold short."

In the silence on the Wormwood, Ana could hear the squeak of rigging 30 feet up in the mainmast. All eyes bounced from the mercenary to the first mate and back like multiple pendulums on the same clock. A microsecond snarl flashed across Mr. Plugg's face so vicious that Ana, Vela, and Carrog staggered back. As did the rest of the crew, even Essig.

"Take your gold," said the first mate in a deathly whisper, "and get out of my sight."

The Chelaxian stared at Mr. Plugg, frozen. Ana, Vela, and Carrog rushed to Essig's side. They dragged him away as fast as they could without breaking into an all-out run.

Ana glanced back over her shoulder. Though her eyes searched for Cut-Throat Grok, they landed on Owlbear. He watched the four of them retreat without slightest trace of malice on his tear-streaked face.


	8. Chapter 8

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 8: Petty Vengeance

Ana and her friends found Cut-Throat Grok drinking in the galley with Ambrose Kroop, the ship's cook. The quartermaster had already closed up shop, but she made an exception for the four. They spent 50 gold pieces on two cutlasses, one for Carrog and one for Essig, as well as two sets of leather armor, one for Vela and one for Essig. The ex-mercenary claimed the other 50 gold pieces as his price for the fight. Before they left the storeroom, Ana asked Grok about a sheath for her club. The quartermaster threw it in for free.

Although she nearly cried with relief at the release around her ribcage, pearl white eyes wet and shining with tears, she tossed and turned on her hammock. Every time she closed her eyes, visions of how Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg might retaliate for this evening's loss of face rose up from the back of her mind, each one worse than the last.

She gave up on sleep. Instead, she crept her way through the crew berth to the stairs and up the stairs to the main deck. A lean man in a blue scarf exhaled two clouds of smoke over the rolling sea. A halfling woman with gold hoops in her ears and a red scarf around her neck leaned against the railing beside him, muscular arms crossed.

Ana approached with a small wave. Crimson Cogward waved back, but the halfling's heavy brows remained furrowed in anger. The samsaran stopped short of joining them at the rail. "Sorry, am I interrupting?"

"Fuck no, you blue slut," growled the halfling.

Ana blinked, pupiless eyes wide. She spun on her heel. Crimson, laughing weakly, hooked one arm through Ana's before she could make a hasty retreat. "Don't mind Rosie Cusswell. She's just taking a piss because they took her fiddle when she was 'recruited.'" The Varisian turned to the halfling. "This is Ana Perya...the one I told you about." He rubbed his cigarette-holding hand along the back of his neck.

Cusswell, likely the musician's pirate name, jerked her chin in minimal acknowledgment. A handaxe gleamed wickedly sharp from her wide leather belt. She wasn't at all friendly, but she was clearly strong and armed-good traits in an ally.

"I know the quartermaster. I might be able to help you out."

Cusswell barked a scoffing laugh. "Helping? That what renting your mouth to a dick is called these days?" She stopped. "Wait. That bastard Grok's a bitch. Renting your mouth to a cunt-there we go."

Ana clamped her mouth shut over her clenched teeth. She slipped her arm out of Crimson's and walked away from the pair. She blinked back the hot tears in her eyes, fists tight. Back in her hammock, she fell into a deep and angry sleep.

"Ana, Vela, you're working the bilges today," said Master Scourge with an easy, gold-toothed smile over his braided beard. "I'll be escorting you personally."

Though side by side, neither of the two dared to glance at the other. The jaundice-eyed half-orc, the makeup-ed woman, and the fat man as wide as he was tall stepped in line behind Master Scourge. The three lackeys each carried a sap from their belts.

The group followed Ana and Vela down to the trapdoor in the crew berths. A bead of cold sweat travelled down the length of her spine, but she flung off her jacket definitely. Then her shirt. The pirates laughed and whistled piercingly. Every inch of blue skin prickled under the stares. She kept her own gaze down on the floorboards and tugged off her boots, her pants. The pirates whooped and hooted and jeered.

Her cheeks flushed bright purple behind the black curtains of her hair, but she removed her underwear, throwing them onto her clothes pile. She did her best to shut out the hoots and gestures from the pirates, but her hands shook on the rusted iron ring of the trapdoor. Ana heaved with all her might, but the door stayed shut. The pirates roared with a laughter that sucked all the air from the lower deck. Her entire body burned and every roll of the ship rocked and spun the fluids in her head.

Vela's still-clothed shoulder brushed Ana's. Her friend's olive-skinned hands joined hers on the ring. "Vela, you'll-"

The red-headed woman shook her head. "Doesn't matter." They heaved together. The door wrenched open with an ear-stabbing squeal of rusted hinges. A foul cloud gushed into the crew berths. The pirates cursed and coughed.

Ana smiled behind the black wings of her hair and climbed down the ladder at once. The thick, brackish water lapped at her calves, leaving small, polluted smears. Even so, here in this stinking darkness she could breath again.

Vela's bootheels clanked against the upper iron rungs. Rusty hinges squealed. Vela stopped.

Master Scourge and his lackeys meant to lock the two of them in the bilges. The manacles. This wasn't just the bilges but the brig. They would be locked in the brig for who knew how long.

Vela scrambled back up the ladder. "Wait! Stop! Stop!" The pirates only whooped and roared. "Stop! I'll do anything!" They stopped.

Ana ran back below the ladder, splashing bilgewater be damned. "Vela, no!" She pounded one fist against the wall of the bottom deck. Not Master Scourge. Anyone but that vile, sadistic blackguard.

Vela didn't move an inch. "I'll do anything. Just don't lock us in here."

Ana couldn't see him from the bottom of the ladder, but she heard the gold-toothed sneer in Master Scourge's voice. "Get down there. Go wait by the manacles."

Ana screamed. "No!"

Vela only climbed down into the bilgewater. She took Ana's wrist and led her away from the ladder. "They'd let us rot and die in here," the Tian woman hissed under her breath. "You don't have to do anything."

Vela stopped by the first set of manacles. Ana pulled her wrist free only to take Vela's hand in both of hers. "Please. Please don't do this." Not with him. "We can find another way."

In one swift motion, Vela shoved her hand and Ana's to the wall. She snapped the cuff of manacle around Ana's wrist. "Just stay out of mine."

Ana grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked with all her might. "No! No!" She yanked and rattled and screamed, thrashing in the bilgewater.

A whip cracked. Her back tore open. Ana cried out and fell to her knees. The foul splash stung like vinegar. Tears blurred her eyes.

One of the lackeys grabbed her head by a handful of her hair. They slammed her head against the wooden wall. Stars exploded in her eyes. She had no strength to resist when they grabbed her fallen arm. They locked it into the other manacle.

The jaundice-eyed half-orc stood beside her with a handheld lantern, a guard. Master Scourge stood in front Vela at the far end of the rows of manacles. The woman and the fat man undressed her. All of them were naked. They threw Vela's weapon, armor, and clothing into the stinking bilgewater.

Ana murmured a word of protest, but the half-orc only grabbed and yanked on a massive handful her hair. "Keep out of it, bitch," he growled over her pained grunt.

As soon as they'd stripped Vela, the woman and the fat man seized her arms and forced her onto her knees. Master Scourge dug his ringed fingers into her red hair and rubbed his dick and balls on her face until he'd hardened to nearly a foot in length. He shoved two fingers into Vela's mouth. "Open. Wide."

Her face miserable, she complied, opening until her tongue stuck out. Master Scourge looked across the sets of manacles at Ana, black eyes glittering. He gave a gold-toothed smile and rammed his cock down Vela's throat. Ana turned furiously away from her violated friend to the murk of the water. She would kill him. She would kill him.

Ana cried out as the half-orc yanked harder, forcing her head up. He turned her to face Vela coughing and choking on Master Scourge's dick. "You're to keep looking, bitch. Get some of that ed-u-cation."

Master Scourge pulled out and came on Vela's face. She shook her head and spat, but his cum dripped into her nose and mouth and down onto her neck and chest. The pirates laughed. Master Scourge stepped back to cool off. "Aretta, get her wet. Fipps, make sure her mouth doesn't get lonely."

Fipps sat down, the bilgewater completely covering his dick. He grabbed Vela's head and shoved her down into the water and onto him. Her arms splashed on either side of his doughy legs, but the pirates only laughed harder. The position left Vela's dripping ass in the air. Aretta wrapped her arms around Vela's toned legs and buried her face in the red-headed woman's ass and pussy.

The fat man only let her up for air after two minutes on his dick under the filthy, stinking water. Vela came up on her hands coughing, shaking, and sputtering. He stood up. "Oy, I'm still hard. Aretta, let's switch."

The woman pulled away and slapped Vela's ass. She crawled around and took Fipps's place sitting in the water. The fat man walked behind Vela and stuck a finger up her ass. Ana's friend winced and grunted.

"That's just disrespectful," said Aretta, wrapping her fingers into Vela's wet, red tangles. "I warmed you up good." She shoved Vela's head back under the water and onto her pussy.

Fipps kept his finger up Vela's ass as he pumped her with his dick. His huge belly slapped the top of her ass. He had to hold her legs up against him to stay inside her. He pulled out before two minutes had past and came down her back. Aretta let go of Vela, 'helping' her up by pushing with her foot on Vela's face.

Master Scourge knocked Aretta's foot away, catching Vela's chin in his hand. He turned her to face to Ana. Her black eyes gazed out blankly, her entire face drained of will and resistance.

Ana screamed. She slammed her wrists against the manacles. Their rusty metal only rattled. Her voice broke off, her throat ripped raw and dry. She choked and coughed, hot, angry tears streaming down her face.

Master Scourge's grin only widened. "Cuff her. Vela's going to give me her ass."

Aretta and Fipps dragged Vela up and back to the wall. They clapped her wrists into a pair of manacles then grabbed one leg each. They held her up in front of Master Scourge's new erection. He winked at Ana and pressed the head of his penis to Vela's asshole. He plunged into her.

Vela gasped and squirmed, but the lackeys only laughed and held her fast. Master Scourge thrust and thrust and thrust. Then Vela made a sound but not in pain. Her back arched and she moaned, needily. Her hips rocked against his. She whimpered from his every stroke.

"See, your friend's having a good time," said the half-orc. "Sure you don't want in?"

"No."

The guard shrugged and looked back at Vela. He laughed. Vela's body quivered, legs shaking in Aretta and Fipps's grasp. She came with a toe-curling moan.

Master Scourge didn't let her rest. She came three more times on his dick before he finally pulled out. Aretta and Fipps dropped her legs into the bilgewater. Master Scourge's cum leaked from her ass down her trembling thighs.

The fat man uncuffed Vela. She slid down the ship's wall onto her knees in the filthy, stinking water with barely a splash. Fipps walked past her without a second glance and unlocked Ana's manacles.

She ran to Vela. Her friend slumped into her. Ana wrapped her arms around the drenched and drained woman, huddling over her protectively. "Vela, are you ok?"

Vela nodded into Ana's blue shoulder. "Yeah...just...give me a minute." She flumped back against the wall. Already soaked from the waist down, Ana crouched along the wall beside her. Vela turned and gave her a weak smile between wet and tangled red locks. "Don't worry...about me. I've done this before. That was just...more intense."

Though not wholly convinced, Ana accepted her friend's response with a nod. The shaft of light in the dim and damp of the bilges drew her pupiless eyes away. She followed the ray up to the still open trapdoor. At the very least, they wouldn't die down this damned hole.


	9. Chapter 9

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 9: The Storm

Rain poured and winds raged on the morning of the seventh day. The sails whipped and flapped violently overhead. Carrog, who'd been whipped along with Essig on a trumped up excuse while Ana and Vela had suffered in the bilges, wouldn't have it easy in the rigging.

Beside Vela, Ana watched as her friend's black eyes followed Master Scourge's boots, shining with rain, while he handed out assignments to the swabs. The samsaran's hands curled into fists, but she kept her head down, white eyes burning holes into the wooden boards of the deck.

She thought their supervisor might designate Vela to be his runner, but he assigned her, Ana, and Sandara to haul and knot the ropes on the main deck down to the cargo hold. The stench of the bilges likely had something to do with it. Ana could smell it on him as well. And while the three worked in the rain, Sandara kept her distance when she could.

That night, the strengthening waves rocked them all violently in their berths. Ana barely heard the tolls of the dawn bell over the howling wind and whipping sails. She had simply been still awake when the others climbed out of their hammocks. Even the most seaworthy of the pirates staggered out of the lower deck, climbing the stairs on hands and feet as the _Wormwood_ roiled in the belly of the storm.

Even Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg could barely stand in the face of the storm, bracing an arm against either side of stairs under the poop deck. Shouting commands, they assigned everyone to the rigging. "Ana, Vela, Crimson, Cusswell," roared Master Scourge over the wind and the waves, "get in the mizzenmast! You're on repairs!"

Ana clambered after Carrog, who'd left Pluck below deck, at the back of the four on her hands and knees. The ice cold rain pounded her back and nearly blinded her. She slid from side to side on the slick boards with the titantic rolls of the deck. And kept sliding.

The ship was tipping. Ana screamed, but the storm swallowed the sound. Her nails scrabbled and scraped the wet wood. She flailed for any hold. Her hand clamped down on Carrog's ankle.

Carrog looked back at her. He held them in place against the cresting wave, but his hands didn't have any hold. When the ship rocked back, they both began to slide. Her white eyes met his bright blue gaze through the thick, corded. Ana let go. The wind whipped his scream away.

Even as she braced to go overboard, she looked and flailed for anything, anything to hold. Then a hand grabbed her by the back of her jacket and she jerked to a stop. She looked up into the rain. Mr. Plugg's mirthless black eyes glared down at her below the black clouds cracked with lightning. Before she could catch her breath, he threw her by the jacket back towards Carrog, Crimson, and Cusswell. Carrog caught her arm and dragged her with him to the mizzenmast.

The four tied safety lines around their waists attached to the mizzenmast. They grabbed coils of rope and climbed the slippery rungs into the rigging. As soon as she reached the rigging, Ana wrapped her arms and legs through the rope squares, clinging for dear life.

Crimson climbed down to take a position beside in the rigging beside her while Carrog and Cusswell remained above. The ice cold rain drove through their clothes like frozen nails. The rigging thrashed in the wind, threatening to shake them down at the first misplaced hold. No one could hear over the deafening wrack of the sails. Through it all, they had to watch for frays and breaks in the ropes to replace at once.

Ana's limbs deadened in their chokehold around the rigging. She cried out helpless. The wind tore out her voice, the rain drowning her tears. She pressed herself as flat as she could to the ropes, screaming and crying until her throat went raw. She choked and coughed on the rain while the wind shook her endlessly.

She stared down into the churning water. Waves crashed into the _Wormwood_ , smashing loose crates and barrels to smithereens. Here and there she thought she caught a scream through the wind, the rain, and thunder. But her head had beaten into the ropes so many times that she could no longer keep track of her own sounds and self. She vomited all the contents of her stomach onto the deck below.

Time passed at a crawl, but it passed. The sky gradually lost what little light remained. In the violent dusk, the four hung as precariously as drenched rat carcasses with their paws stuck in rusted manacle chains. The smallest carcass fell, trailed by a long rope tail with a frayed end.

Ana blinked through the thick, corded rain. The water below bloomed white from a definite splash. She looked up and around. Carrog, Crimson. No Cusswell. Carrog followed her gaze to the splash. He winked on bright blue eye at her. He jumped, diving backward into the sea.

"Carrog!" Ana struggled to free her limbs from their deathgrip through the rope squares of the rigging. She pried one arm and leg free. The wind bashed her into the ropes. Every limb went slack. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head. Her back fell away from the rigging.

A strong arm hooked under her shoulders, slowing her fall. Crimson climbed around and behind her, pinning her between himself and the rigging. His lean, solid body was cold as ice, but so was hers. Both stared out into the sea for any sign of life.

The ship rolled further and further from the fading white splashes. Ana counted the seconds as best as could. Carrog stayed under for two minutes. Three. Four. She clenched her teeth but couldn't stop counting. The waves devoured every last trace of white splash.

Then she saw it. A glint of gold in the black water. Carrog raised one arm and waved wildly. His other arm wrapped around the limp form of a halfling.

Ana pried one arm loose once more. She slapped her hand against Crimson's. He pat her shoulder and climbed as quickly as he could toward the mizzenmast. She waited until he'd reached the mast to follow one square at a time with her deadened limbs. She kept flat to the ropes. At the mast with its rungs, she pounded one palm at a time against the its solid trunk, forcing daggers of feeling back into her hands.

Her fingers flexed at her command. She grabbed hold of the mast's metal rungs and climbed down to Crimson at the bottom of the mizzenmast. Carrog's safety line was taught in his Crimson's hands. The Varisian's muscles strained just to keep hold of the rope.

Ana grabbed on in front of him and walked her way down the railing. The ship rocked and rolled underfoot, but she braced both boots against the wood of the rails. The _Wormwood_ tipped. A great maw of water roared and churned and roiled hundreds of feet below the ship's rail. She held fast to the rope for dear life, pupiless eyes wide.

A wave like a mountain surged up above the churning maw. It crashed down with a deafening roar. The ship rocked back. Ana's hands slid on the taut, wet rope, but her body had pumped so full of adrenaline that she could barely feel or hear anything over the pounding beat of her heart.

Hands grabbed onto the rope beside hers. Crimson stood on the other side of the rail. She nodded at him. They heaved with the backward rock of the ship. The ship rolled forward. They waited. Wave by wave, roll by roll, they tugged Carrog's safety line back to the _Wormwood_ 's side. They walked back from the rail to the mizzenmast, hauling Carrog and Cusswell up from the water.

The two fell over the railing onto the deck. Cusswell vomited up seawater and bile. Carrog crawled, dripping, toward the mizzenmast. Ana and Crimson ran and slid toward the two. They grabbed at any free fabric or limb and dragged the two back to the mast before the ship threw them back overboard as it rolled underfoot. All four clung to the mast and each other, riding out the wave. With safety greatest in the rigging, they climbed back up and into the ropes, Cusswell sporting a new safety line around her waist.

With the added darkness of night, the storm lessened just enough that Ana could hear the shouts of other pirates over the wind and the waves. She shouted just to hear herself. "Finally!"

Crimson beside her and Carrog above both whooped and hollered. Despite her deadening limbs, bone-deep exhaustion, and the icy wetness that clung to her like a second skin, Ana grinned.

"Thanks," shouted Cusswell. "For, you know."

"It was weird," Carrog shouted back. "My body just moved. My head was completely blank. Instinct, I guess."

"I didn't ask for a story. Just take my thanks, asshole."

"I'm pretty sure that should be 'Savior Asshole.' Asshole Saver?"

"Fuck you with a barnacle, Carrog."

"You're welcome."

"Want to hear a real story?" shouted Crimson.

"Yes," shouted Carrog.

"No," shouted Cusswell.

"Fine, another time."

The storm battered them all through the night. But with the breaking of the dawn, the sky lightening from black to a stormy grew. The frigid rain thinned from ropy cords to fine, silver stakes. The dawn bell tolled over the howling wind.

"All hands on deck!" boomed the thunderous voice of Captain Barnabas Harrigan himself.

Ana gathered her leaden limbs out from the rigging. She clawed her way down the rungs of the mizzenmast with frozen fingers. Crimson took her hands into his equally cold and wet hands and rubbed a bit life into both pairs. They waited for Carrog and Cusswell to join them before gathering with the rest of the crew outside the doors of the captain's cabin.

The captain, flanked by Master Scourge and Mr. Plugg, cast a black, piercing eye over the beaten and shivering crew. "You did well last night. Get to your berths and get some rest. The officers will take us to the Fever Sea. You are dismissed."

The doors of the captain's cabin opened behind him. The officers strode out into the silver rain on either flank of the captain. By Master Scourge's side stood a wiry gnomish woman with bright green hair in towering spikes, a pasty half-elf with multiple piercings in both pointed ears, and a soft-faced Garundi woman in a dress with pristine white petticoats. Beside Mr. Plugg stood the drow Stitchman, Officer Quarne, a Rahadoumi woman with a wooden peg leg and skin browned by the sun to match the wood's hue, and a creamy-skinned woman whose long, blonde curls fell and framed her ample bosom.

The crowd parted, heading for the stairs en masse. Ana waited, pearl white eyes following the officers as they took stations around the upper decks. Officer Quarne gave her a half-smile in passing, as did the blonde woman she'd never met.

Vela and tugged the soaking sleeve of her jacket. Ana turned to see the red-headed woman with Essig, Carrog, Sandara, Crimson, and even Cusswell. "Ana, let's go," said Vela.

She followed her friends below deck, smiling quietly.


	10. Chapter 10

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 10: Threads and Fiddlesticks

The dawn bell tolled and called the crew up to greet the clouded but rainless skies over the main deck. Being assigned as the day's runner came as a surprise to Ana, but the needlessly long and exhausting relays did not. She sweated through her clothes before midday, victim of a second, more sweltering downpour. Though Mr. Plugg's mirthless black eyes took in slumped and dripping state without a flicker of emotion, she would've bet her supper bowl that it amused him.

"Go find Officer Quarne," said the first mate. "Tell him I've sent you."

Ana straightened to attention in an instant. "Yes, sir." She spun on her heel and walked as fast as casually possible across the dock and down the stairs. She nodded at Owlbear where he sat chained to the middle deck's foremast. He returned a gap-toothed grin.

The samsaran weaved through the cargo hold's pockets of dust-filled light and shadow. She only stopped to peer around the piles of crates and barrels, searching the darkness for the dark-clothed, night-skinned drow. He and his workbench had apparently changed location.

A silver glint gave him away, a strand of hair escaped from under his black bandana. Officer Quarne bent over his workbench now tucked away behind a partition made of crate tops and walls, a false pile but unquestionable privacy screen. A raw, unvarnished plank laid across his bench. The drow gave the future floorboard one final sweep with a sandpapered brick. He straightened and stretched at her approach. Wood dust drifted off him in a cloud that caught and danced in the light.

Ana gave him a mock salute. "Sorry to interrupt, Officer Quarne. Mr. Plugg sent me."

"And he's tasked you to work on your subservience, has he?" asked the drow, cracking a half-smile.

She lowered her arm. And folded both across her chest. "Only when he and Master Scourge get word of my sex life."

Officer Quarne shook his head. "Neither I nor Grok said anything. Our cook, however, has a penchant for getting drunk and loose-lipped."

She couldn't argue with that. Ambrose Kroop radiated the stench of rum from ten paces. "I believe you."

Both of his silver eyebrows raised, but he left the matter with a wave of his night-skinned hand. With the other, Officer Quarne retrieved a ring of keys from an apron pocket. He turned back to the workbench and crouched over a small chest beneath it. The keys jangled.

Ana stepped forward curiously, but Officer Quarne held up a hand by his pointed ear. She stepped back, grinning at the corners of her mouth despite the forced retreat. She'd never worn anything new, much less made for her. At her college in Zi Ha, the samsarans only passed down garments until the multiple uses finally caused a garment to disintegrate into nothingness. She'd been assigned additional mantra-guided meditations when she'd asked where the garments had come from.

Officer Quarne stood with a small, ribbon-tied bundle in his hands. Ana effectively leapt the distance between them. Though his mouth only spread in half a smile, it reached his silver eyes. He placed the bundle in her waiting, trembling hands.

"Oh!" she gasped. It was light, unexpectedly light despite this climate's heat. She tugged the silvery gray ribbon loose and let it hang around her neck.

Ana sank to her knees and unfurled the clothes in her lap. The first was a light but fitted shirt in pale, smoke gray. The second were light, fitted pants in a matching hue. Below them was a rich blue jacket cut high to stop at her waist and let flow its twin blue tails. At the bottom of the pile was a set of underwear in the jacket's rich blue.

The samsaran stared up at the Stichman, mouth agape. "I can't wear any of these. They're too beautiful and I have to work-I've sweat like a dog." She dragged a hand across her collarbone and opened it toward him. The new skin of sweat on her splayed fingers drew the dust from the air.

Officer Quarne's shoulders shook with a dry laugh. "A pirate has to upkeep their look on the job." He knelt down across from her. "That said, these were made function first. They're tight enough not to snag but loose enough to let you move. What's more, they'll wick the sweat off so you don't end up," one hand gestured at her present state, "looking like a drowned rat-that won't instill fear in your enemies."

True. She glanced down at the clothes and back at the drow, smiling helpless. "Thank you, Officer Quarne."

He grinned back crookedly. "If you'd really like to thank me, you could try them on."

Ana shrugged, and in the same motion she peeled the thread-trailing jacket off her shoulders. It landed on the sawdusted floor with a wet thump. She drew the ribbon off her neck by one end and placed it on the clothes on her lap. She handed the whole stack to the drow.

Ana straightened up on her legs but kept her upper body bent toward Officer Quarne in front of her. The neck of her shirt swung loose, all but opening around the swell of her moon blue cleavage. She grabbed the tucked ends with arms crossed and flipped the shirt off her body onto her arms. The wet fabric clung to her skin. She shimmied and struggled the shirt down off her arms with playful little grunts. It landed just in front of the drow's knees.

He leaned forward toward her chest and its flimsy, teasing breastband. She pushed up to her full height at the same time, leaving his mouth nothing but air. Ana chuckled softly, stepping out of her boots. She unbuckled her belt and slid her pants halfway down the curve of her moon blue hips. She rocked her hips from side to side to slide them the rest of the way down.

She hooked one finger under the hem of her breastband and the other under the hem of her underwear but didn't tug at either. "Do you want to help me with these?"

Officer Quarne placed the stack of clothes on the small chest behind him. He stood and took her hips in his night-skinned hands. Ana walked forward into his kiss. The drow helped her for twenty minutes against the wall and floor of the cargo hold.

Ana returned to the first mate in her new clothes, the old left with Officer Quarne for 'redistribution,' as he put it. Mr. Plugg's gaze narrowed at the the silver gray ribbon tying back her black hair. The samsaran clenched her sweating palms, bracing for another charge of 'impertinence,' but she kept her head up and shoulders square.

Mr. Plugg's black eyes slid down to the clear line of her neck. "Go back to Officer Quarne. Tell him he did well."

Her pearl white eyes blinked. Unexpected. A purple blush crept into her cheeks as she returned to the first mate's endless relays.

Sandara, Crimson, and even Cusswell joined Ana and her friends at the railing for the evening meal. At the very least, none of them had anything negative to say about Officer Quarne's handiwork. Only Sandara took the samsaran aside for a warning. "Be careful, Ana. You've seen how Mr. Plugg treats his pets."

The words sapped the dinner of all its flavor. She ate what she could but ended up passing the rest to Pluck, the moulting parrot.

Ana remained restless for the rest of the evening. She eventually made her way up to the main deck as darkness fell over the _Wormwood_. She spotted Crimson, Cusswell, and Essig at the railing from the top of the stairwell.

The halfling drank from a half-empty bottle of spicy rum. The Varisian exhaled two plumes of curling smoke and passed his lit cigarette to Essig. The pale Chelaxian, tawny eyes shining in its red glow, took a long drag. Crimson rolled himself a new cigarette.

Ana tugged the edge of Essig's cloak. He turned to face her with a fluid languor. She retreated a half-step at the unfamiliar movement.

Essig exhaled out to the side and held the cigarette out to her. "Did you want a smoke?"

She shook her head. "No. Can we talk?"

He nodded and followed her away from the others. She leaned on the railing, looking out over the sea. "I'd like some of your gold to get Cusswell's fiddle back from the quartermaster."

Essig laughed and dropped his forearms down on the rail beside her. He looked her way, mouth twisted wryly. "No."

"Why not?"

He sighed a mouthful of smoke and ran a hand through his prematurely grayed hair. "I'm saving it for a buy or die situation. We're on a pirate ship. I don't know about you, but I'm not a pirate and I don't want to die like one. I'd rather deal in gold."

Ana had nothing to say about that. She couldn't even say why she wanted to help Cusswell. As much as she'd like to imagine it was as a favor to a friend, the possibility that she only wanted to strengthen an alliance remained. The samsaran shuddered at the sudden chill.

Essig draped his cloak over her shoulders without draping his arm. They stayed at the rail of the Wormwood in silence, watching the dark and endless waves.


	11. Chapter 11

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 11: Luck of the Sea

Ana woke sweltering in her hammock with the resolve to help Cusswell get that damned fiddle back. She found an even greater resolve to prove to herself that she could do something without an ulterior motive.

Out swabbing on the main deck, even the stiff, salted breezes offered no respite from the heat. As the afternoon wore on, the sun's rays only grew brighter and more blistering. Sandara called a break on the main deck. She pulled Ana and Vela into the diminishing shade of piles of rope. They had a full view of the azure seas that now lapped at the belly of the _Wormwood_.

Sandara pointed at a vibrant green blur on the horizon. "That's the Slithering Coast."

Ana sat up, spine as straight as a mast. "Are we docking?"

The auburn-haired woman shook her lightly tanned head. "It looks like we're just cutting through the reefs."

The samsaran's heart sank down through her gut. Before it had dropped straight through the floorboards, a pair of immaculate boots, polished to shining, stopped beside the three women.

"New recruits, follow me," said Mr. Plugg.

Carrog and Essig waited for them under the paltry shadows of the mainmast. Four wire cages the size of small crates stood beside the men stacked waist high.

The first mate tapped the bottom cage with the heel of his boot. "The captain wants fresh crab for supper." He pointed past the _Wormwood_ 's stern, north. "There's a reef a hundred yards out. Swim out, fill the crab pots, and swim back."

"What's past the reef?" asked Ana.

His mirthless black eyes narrowed. "A keelhauling."

Vela latched her arm under Ana's with a light laugh. "I'll keep an eye on you and make sure we don't run into one of those." She pulled Ana over to the crab pots.

Despite the heat, the samsaran's blood ran cold. Her palms sweat around the wire of her cage. She followed behind the others to the railing with her eyes fixed firmly on the clear, calm waters off the side of the ship. Vela's words and laughter circled vulture-like at the back of her mind.

Carrog flung off his shirt, kicked off his boots, whipped off his pants, and dived into the azure water with a whoop. Pluck cawed at him from his perch on the rail. "Bring me back the booty!"

Vela broke into a genuine laugh. Even Essig and Ana chuckled at the mouthy familiar.

They removed their boots, cloaks, and coats but otherwise kept their clothes. Ana buckled Carrog's discarded belt across her chest. Its sheathed cutlass hung down her back. Essig grabbed Carrog's completely ignored crab pot. He flung it out toward the sun-browned youth before hopping the rail. Carrog collected his gear with thanks and chagrin.

The crab pots made the hundred yard swim long and cumbersome, but the waters were mercifully cool and crystal clear. After a mere twenty yards, the colors of the reef exploded into view. Living waves of fish danced and whirled through a rainbow of blossoms and tendrils. The reef stretched a hundred yards across only five feet below the water's surface at its tallest and thirty feet below at its shortest.

Ana let her crab pot pull her down to the reef's shallower reaches. She tore her eyes from the reef's endless colors and undulations and focused on a single, red branch of coral. She followed its stillness to the corals at its base, first to the coral above and to the next in a clockwise sweep. A large and spiky red object moved opposite the direction of the water. A crab. A massive, red-shelled crab the size of pillow.

With her last vestige of breath, Ana swam over the crab and scooped it up by the back legs. The crab immediately snapped and struggled and clawed. She dragged it to the wire cage in a rush of churning bubbles and slammed the door. Ana kicked up to surface. She broke through the waves gasping for air.

Her friends soon joined her over the reef. Vela and Carrog grinned through their dripping saltwater. Vela, Essig, and Ana had each caught one.

Carrog had caught four, filling his crab pot completely. "They were just throwing themselves at me."

"Well the rest of us aren't celebrities to shellfish," said Vela, "so why don't you help Ana," she nodded at Essig, "and I'll help you."

Ana shrugged. Carrog continued smiling. They dived back down together to the rainbow-hued reef. Ana's pupiless white eyes widened. Carrog's mere presence drew schools of brightly colored fish that swam and danced past him to occupy the neighboring waters. The presence of so many fish baited the crabs out from their coral lairs.

Carrog gave Ana an underwater high five. They swam in to collect the shellfish. Ana held hers gingerly by its spiny back legs. Carrog held one in each arm, neither crab snapping or clawing in the slightest. She had chalked the gathering fish up to coincidence, but the pacified crabs had to be magic.

Hot, razor-sharp pain lanced through her ankle. Ana screamed a churning mass of bubbles. The crab dropped as she turned around. Her gaze locked with a pair of glowing red eyes in an insectoid face.

Dark red spines ran the length of its chimeric, teal-shelled body. It grasped her leg with the massive claw of a dog-sized lobster. Its eel-like tail stirred the azure waters clouding with Ana's viscous blood and dragged her down.

She kicked and flailed with one hand. The other wrapped around the solid wood of her club.

Ana struck. At the same time, the chimera twisted in the water. The strike went wide as she spun and jerked from the ankle. Its second claw crunched into her waist. She screamed through bubbles and blood.

The edge of a blade glinted in the water. Essig's cutlass severed its clawed arm at the joint. Dark green blood oozed from the gaping wound.

The remaining claw only crunched deeper into Ana's ankle. Her body went light and cold as the blood pumped out. The samsaran reached inward with the focusing components of her spell pouch. Healing energy exploded from her Heart chakra, filling her body with warmth. Her wounds stitched shut.

Essig stabbed his cutlass down through the chimera's shelled head. It entered into a death frenzy. It thrashed tail and claw in the churning, discolored water. Its tail slammed against Essig's chest, knocking him back. Its claw lanced through Ana's shoulder. But it didn't seize her. The chimera's body stilled.

Ana and Essig kicked to the surface. They broke through, heaving and gasping. Vela and Carrog hadn't joined them. The two dove back through the discolored water to the reef.

A second, giant lobster-eel chimera held Carrog's ankle in a viselike grip. It dragged his limp body through a cloud of his own blood. The creature's second claw clamped around Vela's wrist, but Vela fought back. She cut and slashed at its teal-shelled body with her dagger.

Essig reached the chimera first. His cutlass slashed clean through the joint of its arm. Dark green blood oozed as the force of the blow pushed Carrog and the chimera apart.

Ana hooked her arm around Carrog's chest and kicked up toward the surface. Lines of blurring red trailed out behind them. As soon as she could draw breath, Ana summoned the last of her magic. It spread from her arm around Carrog into his own Heart chakra.

He jolted awake, not coughing up saltwater like a nearly drowned man, but as though from a light sleep. Vela and Essig, however, burst up from the water beside them, hacking and sputtering. Vela's wrist bleed and Essig sported a darkening bruise over one eye.

Vela held up her wrist and gave her fingers an experimental wiggle. "Fucking reefclaws."

Essig grimaced and spat a mouthful of discolored seawater. "I think that's a food."

"We should get those before something else does," said Ana.

"Oh, yeah," said Carrog. "There should be sharks around here."

Black, blue, tawny, and white eyes exchanged a glance. They dived down as one.

The swam back to the Wormwood as fast as they could with their cargo. Carrog and Essig each swam with a reefclaw carcass jammed into a crab pot under one arm. Ana and Vela each dragged a crab pot of its intended cargo, Vela holding Carrog's four crabs and Ana holding the others's three.

They hefted the wire cages onto a lowered and waiting rowboat at the side of the ship. The pirates had cast rope lines over the side as well. Ana grasped a line and gave it tug.

The pirates hauled up her. A pirate, Master Scourge. Deceptively strong, the slender man needed no help from the peg-legged Rahadoumi officer chewing tobacco beside him. He hoisted Ana's rope up to his eye level.

Master Scourge gave her a sneering gold-toothed smile. "I see you've had a little trouble catching crabs, Lady Blue."

Her weary arms burned. She swung one dangling foot toward the railing, but the blackguard held her just out of reach. She answered through her clenched teeth in the fleeting hope he'd let her rest if she did. "We managed."

Instead, he looked over at the deeply sun-browned officer. "I swear, these new recruits get softer every year." His glittering black eyes roved back to Ana and her shaking arms. "Disgraceful, really."

The woman spat a black wad over the rail. "Nothing for it but to toughen them up."

"I agree." He released the rope.

Ana fell with a splash and scream.

The four new recruits stood bedraggled and dripping with their half-crab, half-reefclaw filled crab pots before Mr. Plugg. A haze of steam rose off their soaked clothes in the muggy heat. The first mate paced down their line, shaved head and bared chest shining with sweat. "You've failed to return with enough crabs for the ship."

Ana hugged her arms around herself as her gut dropped through the deck. Failure meant punishment.

Mr. Plugg stopped at her end of the line but did not turn to face them. "You're exceedingly lucky that reefclaw is considered a delicacy."

Ana looked down the line at the others-they collectively sighed and slumped in relief.

But when the first mate turned, his grimace had only deepened. "Do not fail me again. You have ten minutes. Then return to your stations. Dismissed."

Mr. Plugg hadn't walked five paces when Carrog flumped back first onto the deck. Essig hooked his arms under the youth's shoulders and dragged him into the shade of the mainmast's sails. Ana and Vela joined them, leaning back against the strong, wooden trunk.

Carrog grudgingly worked himself up onto his forearms. His bright blue gaze fell on Vela's torn sleeve, then Ana's torn shirt and past leg. "I can mend those for you."

"You're a celebrity to shellfish and a secret seamster?" asked Vela. Despite her incredulous tone, she stuck her sleeve out in front of his face.

Carrog turned on his side to free one arm. He pinched the end of the fabric between two sun-browned fingers and grinned. "Nah, just a witch of the sea."

Ana watched as the torn ends stitched themselves together over Vela's raw, wounded wrist. A witch, a bard, a mercenary, and an oracle together, and they'd nearly died catching crabs. She had to agree with the Rahadoumi officer. If they didn't get stronger, they'd never survive a mutiny.


	12. Chapter 12

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 12: Welcome to Boarding School

Ana broke into a sweat the minute she walked onto the main deck to answer the dawn bell. Every sail hung flat and listless from its mast as though wilted from the blistering heat. The _Wormwood_ had sailed into a doldrums over the Fever Sea.

The pirates grumbled, muttered, and sweated as they gathered before Master Scourge. The slender man stood flanked by Mr. Plugg on one side and the Rahadoumi officer whose sun-darkened skin matched the hue of her wooden peg leg. Sandara recoiled at the sight of the woman and grabbed Ana and Vela's hands in hers. "Good luck," she whispered.

Before they could press their friend for an explanation, Master Scourge called Ana, Vela, Carrog, and Essig to stand front and center with a gold-toothed smile. "Good news, new recruits. You're excused from today's duties."

They four exchanged an uncertain glance. His smile only widened. "Come now, show a little enthusiasm-not everyone is so lucky."

Dagger-sharp glares from the crowd behind Ana stabbed into her back. She dropped her white-eyed gaze to the boards of the deck, but her thick black hair, now tied back by Officer Quarne's ribbon, could no longer hide the unease that painted her face.

Vela laughed lightly. Master Scourge winked one glittering black eye at her. "That's better." He turned to the woman at his side. "Gunner, you have your students."

The officer jerked her chin at them. They followed her to the ship's side where a rowboat had been prepared. She chewed and spat a black wad overboard. "Right. I'm Officer Krine, but you can call me Gunner. I'll be your drillmaster today, maybe tomorrow and the day after."

Officer Krine grabbed two coils of rope in each arm and tossed them into the rowboat. They landed with a heavy thud and metallic clank. She pointed at the pile with a snuff-stained middle finger. "Grappling hooks. You'll be out forty feet from the 'enemy vessel.'" Her fingers form quotations in the air. "Land your hook, tie off the rope, climb. You've got three tries to get it right."

"What if we don't get it right?" asked Ana.

Officer Krine held up five stained fingers, closed her hand, and then added one. "Six lashes, courtesy of Master Scourge. Now get in the fucking jolly boat."

As though summoned by name, Master Scourge appeared at the railside flanked by Aretta, Fipps, the jaundice-eyed half-orc, and the scraggly-haired woman with an unhinged grin. Ana recognized the four from the fist-fight on her second day aboard the _Wormwood_. The group leered at Ana and her friends as they climbed over the rail into the jolly boat.

Gunner unsheathed her cutlass and held its shining blade aloft. "Launch the boat!"

Master Scourge's lackeys fiddled with the ropes and pulleys. Ana braced her sweating palms along the sides of the jolly boat, but the boat lowered smoothly into the azure water.

Vela and Carrog, finding that they'd climbed into the oar seat, each took an oar. They rowed lopsided out from the ship. "When it looks like forty feet, just say 'when,'" said Carrog.

Ana, Vela, and Essig looked at each other. Vela and Carrog kept rowing. "When?" said Ana.

The jolly boat stopped one oar at a time, causing it to spin halfway around in the water. Essig stood and picked up the nearest grappling hook. He hurled it as far as he could, but it fell ten feet short of the _Wormwood_. He pinned the tail of the rope under his bootheel before it followed the sturdy hook into the water. Master Scourge's lackeys, still at the railing, laughed and jeered.

Vela and Carrog rowed the boat closer. The four gingerly got to their feet with their grappling hooks in hand. Essig hurled his hook. It landed with a dull clank on the deck. He pulled it snug against a wooden rail. The others threw theirs. Vela's landed, but Carrog and Ana's plopped into the water much to the amusement of the lackeys above.

It took Carrog and Ana several tries before they landed their hooks. Ana's arm and shoulder burned as she tied off the end of her rope. She was the last to grasp her rope. With a nod, the four began their first ship-boarding climb.

Ana yelped and swung underneath her rope, but her sweat-slicked hands kept their grip. She squeezed the rope more tightly between her legs and continued to drag herself upward. Her arms shook and ached. She looked up the endless length of the line. A hard object smacked her in the face. Her mind blanked and she lost her grip, plunging into the water.

Every inch of sweating, baking skin welcomed the coolness. Until the hoots and jeers of Master Scourge's lackeys breached the foot of water overhead. She had to make the climb in two more tries or that blackguard would have her hide.

Ana climbed back into the jolly boat. Vela, Carrog, and Essig were already there, dripping. Essig plied a rotten banana peel off his mildly sunburnt face and tossed it into the azure waters behind them.

The four tried again, and again Master Scourge's lackeys pelted them with rotting food, empty bottles, and other garbage. Though an old boot took Ana down, Vela made it all the way up the rope to the bottom of the ship's rail. Fipps threw an entire bucketful of bilgewater into her face. She fell, coughing and gagging.

At the end of their three tries, only Carrog had reached the railing and boarded the _Wormwood_. Master Scourge's lackeys hauled Ana, Vela, and Essig back up the side of the ship on the jolly boat. Master Scourge greeted them with a gold-toothed sneer in front of the mainmast. A chain had been wrapped around its base, and three sets of manacles spaced evenly on the chain. The slender man beckoned the three with a curl of a single, ringed finger.

Ana, Vela, and Essig stripped off their upper body layers. The clothes landed with a wet thump of sweat and seawater. As Ana walked to a set of manacles, someone kicked her behind the knees. She crumpled and fell on all fours. The jaundice-eyed half-orc crouched beside her and snapped the manacles shut over her wrists. They forced her down so low that she could either kneel or lay completely flat on her belly. Ana knelt, as did Vela and Essig in her peripheral vision.

Master Scourge started with Essig. Ana shut her eyes at the first crack of his whip. The strokes and the ex-mercenary's pained grunts burnt the count into her brain. Vela was next. The red-headed woman held in her screams until the fourth stroke. She continued to sob after the sixth count.

Master Scourge's braided beard brushed the back of Ana's bare shoulder. His hot breath prickled the skin of her ear and neck. "Your turn, Lady Blue."

He stepped back and she braced her palms against the firm wood of the floorboards, almost in prayer. The whip cracked. Fiery pain lanced through her back and her eyes welled with tears. The second stroke tore through her moon blue skin. Ana bit back her scream. Hot, crystal clear blood trailed down to the hem of her pants. She screamed at the third stroke.

Master Scourge stopped. He crouched beside Ana and took her chin in his hand. He wiped the trail of tears off her cheek with a ringed thumb. "I could stop, if you wanted. It's all up to you."

His easy, teasing tone made her stomach roil, but she asked between ragged breaths. "How?"

He smiled. "I want you to beg me to touch you."

Ana spat in his face. Master Scourge licked it off with a sneering laugh. He dropped her chin and stepped back behind her. The whip's tail landed harder and sharper. Ana screamed and sobbed through the final blows, collapsing flat over her knees. After he'd gone, she closed her wounds with healing magic, but it took much longer for her tears to dry.

Master Scourge left the three to burn and bake under the blistering sun. They sat up as flat as they could against the mast and the meager shade of its listless sails. None of them spoke, but throughout the day, they would grunt from the kick of a passing pirate.

Only at the evening bell did Master Scourge give Sandara the keys. She ran down to the mainmast to free them. The auburn-haired woman channeled the power of her goddess Besmara and healed Vela and Essig's backs. Everyone's skin remained hot and red from the sun.

Sandara took them down to the crew berths and spread a cooling salve over the burns. She shook her head, green eyes full of worry. "You'd better make it tomorrow or..."

Tomorrow. Ana clenched her teeth. They would have to repeat the exercise all over again. She would make it. She had to.


	13. Chapter 13

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 13: Unfun under the Sun

On the second day, more of Master Scourge's lackeys had joined the jeering, garbage-pelting spectators: a woman radiating a cloud of pungent rum and an old half-elf who'd shaved her gray hair into stripes. The jeering and pelting with garbage increased in turn.

Despite Ana's resolve, she fell victim to the crowd while Vela and Essig made the climb. The second round of Master Scourge's heavy-handed lashings only cut deeper into her tender, peeling back.

On the third and last possible day of Officer Krine's boarding exercises, a Mwangi woman a foot and a half taller than Vela and Mr. Plugg joined the spectators. The first mate neither jeered nor rifled through the waste barrels behind the crowd. His gaze weighed heavily upon the samsaran as she tied off her rope.

Her cheeks burned purple. Ana cursed the Fever Sea and its ship-stalling doldrums under her breath. She took the rope between her blistered hands. This time, she let herself swing below the line and wrapped her legs around it.

Ana closed her eyes. She waited. The gentle rock of the jolly boat travelled up through the rope and into her limbs. She moved with the forward, upward motion of the boat, shifting her weight ever so slightly when the rope pulled back. She sweat into the cracked, blistered skin of her palms. Ana hissed and winced but didn't stop.

A crab claw flew past her head. A second sliced through her cheek and ear as it whizzed by. The samsaran clenched her teeth and kept climbing.

Ana had almost reached the rail when Fipp threw a bucketful of bilgewater into her face. She cried out, her pearl white eyes watering and burning. The foul, stinking water entered her nose and mouth. She coughed and choked. Bile rose up into her throat. She turned her head to the side and gagged, but she didn't let go of the rope.

Her arms ached and shook. Garbage bruised and bounced off her body. Ana held fast, waiting for her vision to clear and her breath to return. She blinked back the last of her tears and glared straight up at Fipps. He recoiled a step, much to her satisfaction.

Hand by hand, Ana climbed up the rope to the bottom of the _Wormwood_ 's railing. With the last dregs of her strength, she pushed with her feet, pulled with her arms, and dragged herself up the outside of the rail.

Fipps grinned. The samsaran's pupiless eyes darted to the bucket in his hands. Empty. He smashed it against the side of her head.

White stars burst in her eyes. The _Wormwood_ reeled back and out of reach. Her back slammed against a hard sheet of water. Her entire body went cold before she'd gone under.

Ana floated, seemingly suspended, in the clear, azure water. The cold faded to a pleasant, tingling coolness. She smiled.

A crab claw drifted past her face. The boarding exercise. Ana shut her eyes. She sobbed and screamed out a churning mass of bubbles. Her lungs burned and strained.

She could die here. She could die and reincarnate. But if she did, everything she was would be lost. She had done nothing, achieved nothing. When she reincarnated, she wouldn't even be able to learn the name that belonged to her, her name, from someone else.

Ana broke through the surface of the water. The sunlight struck her like a blow. She scrabbled back into the jolly boat, head spinning. Her hands twitched on the rope, but she forced her leaden limbs to move.

The samsaran made it halfway up the rope before she lost feeling in her hands. She slipped and fell. She tried again. She fell again.

The pirates hauled her up in the jolly boat. She kept her eyes on the unmoved wood of the mainmast, avoiding the gazes of both Mr. Plugg and Master Scourge. Her ears toned the hoots and jeers of the crowd down to an innocuous murmuring of white noise. Ana walked to the mast, shoulders straight.

Mr. Plugg stalked past her, dragging Fipps behind him. He reached the mainmast first and threw the fat man against the solid trunk. The violence shunted Ana from her passive trance. She stared, white eyes wide.

The first mate's face had gone livid over his immaculate navy coat. He planted one shining boot against Fipps's flabby back and shoved the man hard against the mast. Fipps whimpered like the cowardly dog he was. Mr. Plugg leaned in and growled low. "In your stupidity, you nearly killed your crewmate. You get six lashes for defying the captain and six for wasting my time."

The first mate wasted none of his own time in dispatching the punishment. He stepped off the fat man's back and drew his nine-tailed whip in the same motion. Nine tails cracked, tearing fabric and flesh. Fipps cried out.

Master Scourge only shrugged. While Mr. Plugg tore his lackey's back to shreds, he went to stand over Ana as she stripped for her own punishment. His leering, sneering presence destroyed the last of her inner peace. Her hands shook and her eyes stung with burning tears. After everything she'd been through, he still found a way to humiliate her. She would kill him.

Aretta snapped the manacles shut around Ana's wrists. She grabbed a handful of the samsaran's black hair and jerked her head so that she had to look up at Master Scourge and his grinning mouthful of gold teeth.

At the edge of her vision, Mr. Plugg laid a hand on the slender man's shoulder. "I'll do it."

Aretta released Ana's hair and leapt away. Not a moment too soon. Nine tails cracked across the moon blue skin of the samsaran's back.

Fortunately, Ana had expected no sympathy because she received none. The first mate laid into her even harder than he had into Fipps. She could hear the Tian man's ragged breath over his whip and her own cries.

Ana lost count of how many times he'd struck her. She only knew her punishment had ended when the next blow never came. She laid, shaking, over her knees and bled crystal clear down her sides onto the deck. Warm, healing magic spread from her Heart chakra to her shredded back.

Mr. Plugg's shadow fell over her. He dismissed Master Scourge's lackeys back to their stations. Ana sat up and turned over her shoulder to see Master Scourge leave with them. An indecipherable look had replaced the blackguard's usual, nauseating smile.

The first mate caught her looking. His mirthless black eyes met hers. They narrowed. Mr. Plugg stalked off without a word.

Only Officer Krine remained, standing at the railing. She spat a black wad over the side of the _Wormwood_ , then made her way to the mainmast. The Rahadoumi woman dropped down on one knee beside the samsaran. She picked up Ana's smoke gray shirt and tied the sleeves around Ana's neck so the fabric kept the sun off her back.

"Thank you," said Ana, her voice hoarse.

The ship's gunner cracked a wry smile. "You made it up."

Ana's aching body lightened with the tiniest spark of pride. "I did."

Officer Krine pat Ana's shoulder and pushed up to her foot and peg leg. "I'll be keeping a weather eye out for you, Ana."

When Sandara came with the keys at the evening bell, Crimson came with her. He crouched in front of the samsaran while the auburn-hair woman unlocked her. Freed but bone-tired, Ana slumped against the blue-scarved Varisian. He grabbed the rest of her clothes, placed them in her lap, and picked her up off the hard planks of the deck. Crimson took her down to the crew berths as Sandara returned the keys.

The call to supper on the main deck left the lower deck empty save for them. Hammocks draped as listlessly as the sails above, trailing their untied end onto the gently rocking floor.

Crimson sat on the wooden foot locker beside Sandara's with Ana in his lap. He untied the shirt from around her neck, placing it on top of the other clothes in her hands. "I heard you passed Gunner's test."

She could smell the bitter smoke on his breath. "I did and I still got whipped."

They fell into a silence quickly broken by Sandara's footfalls on the stairs. She darted between the pillars to her locker and removed her cooling salve. "Thank Besmara that's over." She rubbed the herbal mixture over Ana's burned, peeling skin. It left a minty, woody scent.

The samsaran shifted in Crimson's lap, straddling him to expose her back and sides. His violet eyes looked everywhere but her chest, the back of his neck flushing bright red. Ana's shoulders shook with a quiet chuckle at the ridiculousness of it all. The releasing aches and pains only left her lighter, freer. She rested her forehead against his, mingling their scents of wood and smoke.

Sandara cleared her throat, finished. She returned the salve from her locker and turned to go.

Ana reached out to her side, catching the auburn-haired woman's fingertips. "Did you want to go? Or would you like to stay?"

Green eyes blinked. Then darted toward Crimson. A slow but brilliant red flush spread up from Sandara's neck, across her face, all the way up to her ears.

The Varisian grinned and held out a hand to Sandara as well. Their slightly tanned and olive-skinned fingers entwined.


	14. Chapter 14

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 14: Officers in Doldrum

The doldrums persisted for a fourth day and a fifth. Each stall of the _Wormwood_ 's voyage brought more of the ship's officers out onto the main deck.

Ana kept her head down. Master Scourge had been assigning her the worst of the swab duties-pumping out the bilges, catching rats and cockroaches-ever since Mr. Plugg had deprived him of the chance to whip her. The thought of giving the blackguard a new reason to lash out at her made her body shudder and blood run cold.

On the sixth dawn of the stale, blazing heat, two officers joined Master Scourge before the gathered crew, a creamy-skinned woman whose long, blonde curls framed her ample bosom and the even pastier half-elf with multiple piercings in both pointed ears. The woman had one lace-sleeve arm tucked over Master Scourge's. The half-elf held a lacy parasol over the three of them, his face both sweating and disgruntled.

The woman waved a lace handkerchief at the crowd with her free hand. Her painted mouth curved into a portrait-worthy smile. "Good morning, pirates."

The long-time crew members replied without missing a beat. Ana, Vela, Carrog, and Essig stumbled along with them. "Good morning, Officer Longfarthing."

"Master Scourge," she patted his sun-browned hand, "has graciously allowed me to borrow a few of you to help replenish our potion stock while we're stuck out here wasting our youth, our beauty, and our talent in the middle of the ocean. Isn't that right, Master Scourge? Kipper?"

The half-elf scratched his nose and sniffed. "Well, my arm's getting tired of porting this parasol around every time you want to take a stroll." He winced as she stamped her dainty heel onto his boot. "Ow."

Master Scourge gave Officer Longfarthing a gold-toothed smile and cleared his throat. "That's right. Magic-users, front and center."

Ana, Vela, Carrog, and Sandara stepped forward. Officer Longfarthing, tailed by the parasol-porting Kipper, inspected them from a distance less than the length of her pinkie finger. She smelled sweet but chemical. Her deep blue eyes dropped straight to the four's spell component pouches.

"Excellent. Follow me, if you please." Officer Longfarthing took them across the main deck toward the foredeck, the raised deck a mere ten feet above the main deck where the foremast rose and its sails wilted. She stopped at the narrow door between the two staircases to the foredeck. She held a hand over the door's lock and murmured under her breath.

The skin on the back of Ana's neck prickled. Though unseen and unheard, each of the seven main chakras in her body jolted in place as though struck by static.

Officer Longfarthing turned and smiled, pushing the door open with her back. "Welcome to my laboratory."

A single step into the room blasted Ana with the mixed scents of sweet, cloying herbs and sterile, chemical cleansers. She managed not to throw her hands over her nose and mouth but couldn't keep her nose from wrinkling. A much pleasanter but less probable coolness washed over her skin. She stepped aside to let the others through while she adjusted to the air and its heavy, chakra-tingling aura of magic.

The laboratory occupied a space much larger than the ship could've contained under the foredeck. This must've been a pocket dimension inaccessible to anyone who didn't cast the proper spell on the cabin door. That would explain the coolness and why none of the cabin's jam-packed clutter appeared broken despite the recent storm.

Her pupiless eyes wandered the hectic crowd of objects that exploded from every nook and cranny of the laboratory. Dried herbs hung from every inch of the rafters tied by string, wire, and ribbon. Glass decanters containing all colors of liquid clustered on surface strong and flat enough to support them. Books crammed the shelves around bones, stones, and crystals. Parchments papered the walls, the sides of shelves and desks, and poked out from drawers in the form of scrolls.

Amidst the hectic crowds of odds and ends, a glint of gold caught Ana's eye. A mound of coins piled high on a stack of leather-bound tomes. A handful of the gold coins laid on the floor under a thin film of dust, forgotten.

Kipper ran into the laboratory, squeezing past the guests and furniture. He tossed the closed parasol into a drawer of scrolls and managed to procure four stools.

The cabin held three, black-topped tables-Officer Longfarthing's desk under the cabin window and the two tables set across each other in the middle of the room.

Kipper kicked two stools under each of the middle tables. He set ten full satchels on each tabletop followed by two mortars and pestles, two mixing bowls, one oil-filled burner, and an assortment of glass decanters filled with water.

As soon as Carrog sat, Ana took the stool at his table. Vela understood need, but she was overly cautious. Sandara had the trust of the officers, or at least Master Scourge's, and that was far too valuable to risk over a scheme and stunt.

After everyone had taken seats, Kipper placed two scrolls on each desk. Ana and Carrog tilted their heads to try to read the scrolls without touching them. They succeeded only in bumping heads.

Officer Longfarthing tittered behind her lace handkerchief. "You're permitted to look-you're helping me brew these, after all."

Ana and Carrog each unfurled a scroll onto the tabletop. One spell cured moderate wounds. The other spell provided basic restoration to the body and mind. Both demanded more magical energy than Ana could provide at her current strength. "I can't cast either of these."

"Yeah, same," said Carrog.

Officer Longfarthing's painted smile took both a generous and patronizing turn. "I'll cast the spells, little ones. All you need to do is prepare the binding agent." She tweezed the end of a satchel between two fingers and gave it a dainty shake.

Her directions for preparation were simple: crush the agent to a fine powder; bring water to boiling; remove the water from the heat; and stir in the binding agent until all the powder had dissolved. The blonde officer would cast the spells once they had filled all the decanters.

Ana opened a satchel. It contained a white, odorless solid broken into small, angular pieces. She emptied it into one of the two heavy mortars. Carrog set a glass decanter in the wire frame of the oil-burner. He pinched three fingers together, conjuring a small flame.

Officer Longfarthing leaned forward and blew it out. "You'll waste the oil if you start now, silly." She rose slowly, pushing up from the tabletop and elongating their view of her chest. "Why don't you help out your friend with the another mortar and pestle?"

He did as suggestively commanded. Ana and Carrog crushed, ground, and hammered the agent until their sweat dripped into the mortars. The pocket-sized quantity in each satchel took half an hour at best to reduce to powder. But the incessant banging from both tables promised excellent cover for conversation.

Ana looked up from the half-ground agent in her mortar. Officer Longfarthing sat at her desk, head flat against its surface. She hadn't moved for the past satchel and a half. Kipper leaned against the wall behind her under the cabin window. He held a book in his pasty hands but would lower it without warning for an unimpeded look at their progress.

The samsaran nudged Carrog's elbow with her own. He glanced over but continued to bash his agent with a butter-churning motion. Ana leaned over her mortar and closer to his shoulder. "I need a distraction."

He winked one bright blue eye at her and covered his mouth with the crook of his arm as though wiping his sweat-slicked nose. Ana felt a prickle of magic in her Third Eye Chakra.

Though Carrog whispered his message, the magic would relay it to his intended recipient, if near enough. "Hey, Sandara. It's Carrog." He paused. "See the bottles on the bookshelf next to my table?" Pause. "Which one should someone absolutely not break?" Pause. He lowered his arm, grinning, and leaned over his mortar, closer to Ana's shoulder. "She said all of them. Get ready."

Ana didn't stop pounding, but she lightened her blows, readying to drop her pestle.

Carrog stood up from his stool and stretched his arms wide, pestle tucked in the back of one sleeve. Kipper lowered his book but remained against the wall. As the blond youth lowered his arms, his pestle dropped from his sleeve and rolled across the floorboards toward the bookcase.

"Hey, get back here!" He bolted toward the pestle, tackling the bookcase with his shoulder. Books, bones, stones, and minerals fell. The cluster of decanters shattered.

Everyone jumped, including Officer Longfarthring. She screamed. "Get out!"

A thick, dark gray cloud exploded from the wet nest of glass on the floor. It pummelled eyes, nose, throat, and stomach with the pungent reek of rotted eggs. Everyone doubled over.

Ana didn't have to pretend to fall, but the lower she was, the closer and stronger the gas. She wretched into the dark cloud, head spinning. Someone staggered over her arm, hopefully toward the door. She scrambled to her feet and followed in that direction, pressing her forearm over her nose and breathing through the fabric.

Muggy heat and bright sunlight struck Ana with an instant headache, but the air was free, if stale. Vela and Sandara in front of her ran across the main deck all the way behind the mainmast. She followed, tailed halfway down to the mast by the rolling, billowing, stinking cloud.

Vela and Sandara pulled her behind the mainmast. The three stood with their backs to its trunk, panting into their sleeves. The cloud did not envelop them. The three braced their hands against the wood for a hasty retreat and peered out from behind either side of the mainmast.

Officer Longfarthing and Kipper stumbled out of the cloud, dragging Carrog between them. They held his arms over their shoulders. His head hung limp and his boots scraped the boards of the deck. As soon as they reached the mainmast, Ana, Vela, and Sandara took Carrog off their hands and lowered him to the floor.

A crowd of bored pirates gathered behind them even as the stinking gray cloud billowing from the cabin door lightened, shrank, and retreated. Even the officers looked down from the bridge on the poop deck.

Ana, kneeling beside Carrog, pushed stray blond hair out of his unopened eyes. "Will he be ok?" she asked, her voice thin and reedy with strain.

Officer Longfarthing pulled the lace handkerchief from around her nose and mouth down around her creamy-skinned neck. "He received several potions worth of sulfur, enough to blast all the surrounding oxygen away. It's perfectly survivable-he was only knocked out because it happened so fast." She tittered behind one hand. "He's just lucky that he's cute enough for us to have dragged him out of the laboratory. And that he didn't barrel into the fire potions."

Fire potions. The word punched a hole through Ana's gut. "Carrog…," she murmured, blinking hard.

As the final wisps of cloud dissipated, the youth's bright blue eyes fluttered open. He sat straight up between Ana, Vela, and Sandara, looking around his new setting. Officer Longfarthing smiled and gave him a dainty fingered wave. "You're just in time, little one."

"In time for what?" asked Carrog.

Kipper grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hoisted him to his feet. "Getting back to work." The half-elf didn't let go. "This time, don't. Touch. Anything." He swatted the back of Carrog's head, pushing him in the direction of the cabin.

Ana ran up beside him only to match his easy-going stride. She took his hand in hers, pressing three gold coins into his palm.

The four escaped Officer Longfarthing's laboratory at the end of the day. Ana's feet ached from hours of standing over mortars and mixing bowls. Her arms hung stiff and leaden from their sockets. But at the evening bell, she descended to the middle deck, her feet tripping lightly on the wooden stairs.

When darkness fell, she searched for Essig, Crimson, and Cusswell on the main deck with her hands behind her back. The three leaned against the railing, their backs to the flat sea. Crimson exhaled two curling clouds of smoke and passed Essig his lit cigarette. Cusswell uncorked a bottle of rum with a mighty pop.

Ana stopped in front of the halfling. Cusswell looked up, moving the bottle in a slow rise to her mouth as she spoke. "You got something to say to me?"

The samsaran pulled Cusswell's fiddle out from behind her back. The rum bottle shattered against the deck. she jumped at the sound but didn't let go of the instrument. The halfling held out both hands, open and shaking. Ana handed over the fiddle and bow.

Cusswell cradled the fiddle in her arms, bowing her head to its polished wood and strings. She stayed in the embrace for several moments before setting the black frog of the bow between her teeth. She turned the pegs on the neck of the fiddle, plucking the strings experimentally. Satisfied, she removed the bow from between her teeth and pinned the fiddle between her chin and shoulder.

The halfling twisted one end of the bow, drawing the strings tight. She pulled a rag-wrapped bundle from the front pocket of her coat. Inside laid a stone of soft, amber resin. She rubbed down the bow with the resin stone and returned it to the rag and her pocket.

Cusswell closed her eyes with the fiddle under her chin and the bow in hand. Her stance shifted from one broad and slouched to one drawn straight and upward, chakras aligned. She placed the bow to the string.

Every creak and breath aboard the _Wormwood_ fell silent at the sound. Cusswell's fiddle sang with a voice of horsehair and hollowed wood. Every inch of Ana's skin stood on end, ready to leap from her body and walk with a life of its own. But just as she felt her moon blue skin would tear apart from her, the music kicked into a jaunty tune.

Crimson laughed, clapped, and stomped his feet. Essig and Ana joined in, laughing and clapping. They hooked arms, spun, and kicked.

Crewmates tromped up the stairs with lanterns and wandered over from across the deck. They joined in the happy clamor, clapping, whooping, stomping and dancing. Ana spun arm in arm with Crimson, with Vela, with Carrog, and then with none other than Officer Longfarthing, her golden locks flying free around her creamy-skinned shoulders. The woman laughed and spun away, hooking Carrog's arm in hers.

After many rounds and many partners, Ana staggered against the ship's rail for a breather. She looked out over the dark waters. In their stillness, they caught the stars. Vela and Sandara, grinning from ear-to-ear, joined her on either side.

Sandara's eyes widened, her grin dropping away. One hand patted Ana's arm urgently but wordlessly. The other pointed out over the rail.

The samsaran leaned toward the sea. A gentle, salted breeze kiss the skin of her face and lifted the stray ends of her hair. Ana grabbed the top of the rail and threw back her head. She whooped into the first stirrings of wind.


	15. Chapter 15

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 15: No Good Deed

When Ana and her friends climbed up to the main deck in the morning, they were greeted by a stiff, salted breeze and Carrog, who'd spent the night with Officer Longfarthing and Kipper. Dark shadows ringed his bright blue eyes. He didn't say anything about their time together.

His moulting familiar Pluck had other ideas. "Chicka chicka bow wow," he squawked before flying off to his favorite perch on the mizzenmast.

Mr. Plugg sentenced Carrog to the hardest of the rigger duties, line work, during which the fatigued youth had to stay alert and one his feet, hoisting and lowering the sails on command. Carrog winced. Ana and Vela each patted one shoulder. He sighed and stumbled off to his station.

Master Scourge assigned Vela to be his runner. As for Ana, "I've got rats and roaches looking for you, Lady Blue."

Ana started on the main deck while the early morning chill still tempered the sun's rays. After a few roach-crushing hours, she headed down to the middle deck and the cargo hold with a wave and a nod to Owlbear on her way down. He gave her his habitual gap-toothed smile.

Her pupiless eyes adapted to the low light conditions almost at once. She started her search at the stern junction of the ship's walls, heading clockwise to the starboard wall. She set the fingertips of one hand along the wood and crouched low. As she walked, she dragged her fingers over the grain. The slight change of the wood under her fingertips simulated tree-like life in the boards. She breathed a little easier in the dust-choked air.

Less than a scrap's throw from the pig cages, were scraps, knocked across the floorboards by the pigs during this morning's feeding frenzy. There, infallibly, wiggled a long and ropey tail.

Ana pushed off the wall onto the balls of her feet. She wrapped both hands around the wooden length of her rat-catching net. She stepped with the roll and creak of the ship. She stopped when the rat did, raising its head from the scraps. Its head jerked in all directions, whiskers twitching.

Ana slid her hands down the length of the wood until she had the approximate distance. She took a deep breath, waiting.

The rat lowered its head.

Ana struck. The net slammed down. Crushed scraps flew and slid in all directions. The rat squeaked and squealed in ear-piercing panic. She held fast. The rat ran and struggled against the net, but she dragged it implacably toward her.

One shining, polished boot stepped down on the rim of the net from Ana's right. From Ana's left, a worn, scuffed bootheel crunched down on the rat's head. Red clumps shot through the holes of the net. Ana screamed.

Slender fingers knotted in her hair and forced her to look upward. Her scream died in her throat. Mr. Plugg, Master Scourge, and four of Master Scourge's lackeys-Aretta, Fipps, the half-orc, and the scraggly-haired woman, still grinning-surrounded her from behind.

Master Scourge slowly pulled her to her feet, turning her by her hair to face them. Hot tears pricked her eyes at the pain in her scalp. The pirate only smiled wider over his braided black beard. "It's not very professional to cry on the job, Ana."

Mr. Plugg's mirthless black eyes bored straight through her watering whites. "Last night you paid for a fiddle in gold coin. Where did you get the gold?"

White hot fear speared her gut and tore the air from her lungs. She panted, short and fast. Tears welling, falling.

Master Scourge struck her across the face with the multi-ringed back of his free hand. His gold-toothed smile never faltered. It only grew more sneering.

"The floor," she whimpered through her teeth, the pain, and the tears. "It was on the floor of Officer Longfarthing's laboratory."

Livid fury flashed across Mr. Plugg's face. It was gone in a second, but it left his teeth on edge. "Master Scourge, I leave this thief in your care." He turned on his heel without another word and stalked off through the lackeys, forcing them to jump and stagger out of his way.

"Ana, Ana, Ana." With each repetition of her name, Master Scourge leaned closer until he breathed less than hair's breadth from her ear and neck. The hand knotted in her hair held her head in place as prickles erupted all over the skin. "You're mine now."

In a single, fluid motion, he stood and threw her into the waiting hands of his lackeys. Ana screamed. They grabbed, searched, and stripped every part of her. She didn't stop screaming until one punched the side of her face. Her teeth clacked shut on her tongue. Crystal clear blood spurted from the bitten tip onto the floor. She gasped in pain.

They shoved her to her knees on the hard wooden boards and twisted her arms behind her naked back. They bound her wrists behind her and her arms to her sides, drawing the rough, itching rope tight around her chest. One boot kicked her to the floor and held her there, planted firmly on her back. Shackles clamped shut around both ankles. The short, hobbling metal chain between the cuffs clattered against the floorboards. Another boot kicked her in the side of the ribs. She grunted and coughed. The pirates laughed.

They grabbed her by the arms and yanked her to her feet. The blunt wood of a sap prodded her in the back. "Move, bitch."

The pirates prodded her all the way back to the middle deck's damp, cramped holding room. The half-orc held the door open. A sap whacked her across the back. She cried out and fell to her knees inside the horrid, moldy cell.

It wasn't far enough. "Get in, you lazy cunt." Someone grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her against the far wall. White stars exploded in her eyes. They left nothing but darkness behind.

Ana woke screaming in pain. A whip cracked against the back of her thighs. Stinging, burning heat lanced up through the blow. Her knees collapsed under her. She fell forward but didn't hit the floor. A rope hooked through the bonds criss-crossing her chest and back jerked her to a stop. The rope held her through the next lash.

Ana screamed, raw and hoarse. Tears fell from her face and joined the clear blood that slicked the floor under her bare feet. Her feet slipped. She dropped again. She jerked and hung from the rope. No escape. Master Scourge's whip came down on her again and again in a rain of heavy blows. She endured five more strokes before mercifully passing out above the growing slick of her own bodily fluids.

Ana woke to the creak of rope and the gentle roll of the ship under her feet. The damp, cramped cabin had fallen dark. Moonlight filtered in from the dirt-encrusted porthole, too weak to light more than the outlines of the door handles and Ana's stiff, aching body. Her second skin of sweat and crystal blood caught the moonlight so that she seemed to glow softly blue.

She sobbed a wretched laugh. The slight strain of her chest against the ropes awakened a deep, pained throb in her broken skin and many bruises. Fresh tears streaked down her cheeks. Her body trembled in its bonds. She'd made a terrible mistake.

The pirates had tortured her but hadn't killed her. They would either return to torture her again, or they would kill her. They might torture her for days before the keelhauling. The Bloody Hour. That was what Sandara called it. A helpless cry escaped her lips.

The lock clunked in the door. Ana raised her head as the door creaked open. Two figures stood in the shadows outside the doorway. One gasped and ran into the cell.

Sandara. She brushed the hair out of Ana's face and placed one mercifully cool palm against Ana's forehead. Warm, healing magic flowed down through her tortured body.

The sudden release of pain brought tears to her eyes once more. "Thank you. Thank you, Sandara," Ana choked.

Sandara nodded hastily but said nothing, glancing at the figure who remained outside. The figure stepped into the cell and its feeble light.

"Leave us," said Mr. Plugg.

Sandara gave Ana's bare shoulder a compassionate squeeze, but the concern in her eyes only grew. She smiled tightly and left the cell.

The first mate pulled the door shut behind him. An icy shiver travelled down Ana's spine, but the ropes held her fast. Mr. Plugg leaned back against the door, arms crossed over his open navy jacket. His glare burned a hole through her chest. A guilty, purple flush spread up from her bound sternum to her neck and into her cheeks.

"I'm sorry I did it," said Ana, blinking hard. "I wouldn't have stolen if I'd known I'd get caught."

Mr. Plugg sprang off the door and grabbed her by the arms with a guttural growl. "I'm surrounded by imbeciles," he spat, shaking her in his hands.

Ana shut her eyes, whimpering helplessly. The shaking stopped. The samsaran kept her eyes closed, steadying her breath. Mr. Plugg's hands never left her shoulders, but their viselike grip softened. Ana opened her eyes.

The first mate stood close enough that she could see the rise and fall of his bare chest despite the feeble moonlight. His mirthless black eyes met hers. "Give me a reason not to strangle you right now and spare you a keelhauling."

A single bead of cold sweat trailed down Ana's back. She shuddered in his hands but kept silent. Her mind completely blanked. There was nothing she could say to stop him from 'mercy' killing her.

Then his head bowed over her shoulder. His breath brushed the tender skin of her wounded back and her bound breast. His voice lowered to a deathly whisper. "I should be glad of the opportunity to be rid of you. Ever since you joined this crew, you've been nothing but a poison. You cloud the thoughts and judgment of everyone you touch."

Though the shattered memories of her past offered no guidance, Mr. Plugg's own words gave her an idea. She rested her forehead against his chest. His shoulders stiffened. His entire body went rigid.

"I am a poison," she murmured into his chest. "You and your mind can be harmed by it, or you can accept what I am and use me." She looked up directly into his eyes. "Let me show you what I can do."

The first mate drew a ragged breath but reached around and unhooked her from the rope above. She fell into him. He caught her. "Show me."


	16. Chapter 16

Wormwood Mutiny

Chapter 16: Sex, Currency

"Untie me," said Ana as Mr. Plugg lowered her to a seat on the wooden floorboards of the cell.

The first mate shook his head, his perpetual grimace still firmly in place. "No. You have no power here, Ana."

She gasped softly but not in pain. The samsaran bit her lip to keep from smiling. He didn't realize that he'd already restored her power from the moment that he'd allowed his lust to turn his mind from execution to pleasure.

Despite Ana's healed but tender wounds, her sheer exhaustion mixed with her pumping adrenaline into a heady cocktail of inhibitions. She pouted, playfully. "Fine. Then help me get on my knees." Her cheeks flushed purple, and she looked up at him, eyes wide with a simple, burning plea. "I need you in my mouth."

His grimace twitched but didn't leave his face. He unbuckled his belt and lowered his pants.

Ana leaned forward as far as she could, nearly falling into him as she lapped at his dick and balls. She licked and sucked, struggling to keep her eyes on him until she finally fell onto him. His head rammed the back of her throat. She coughed and choked, helplessly impaled on him.

"Ana, fuck." The first mate slid his fingers through her hair and guided her off him, but she whimpered and squirmed in her bonds.

"No, please, I-I haven't even tasted your cum."

He growled low in his throat and brought his forehead down to press against hers. "Gods, you're so dirty. I should punish you for that." But he relented, straightening up so she could take his dick.

She took him deeply. It was easier with his hands in her hair. Whenever she fell and choked, he helped her back onto her knees. She moaned around him and pushed him into her until his fingers tightened their grip. He thrust and thrust down her throat until she tasted cum. He slid her off his dick, but she pulled away from his grip to lick the last drops from the tip.

The first mate crouched in front of her, shaking his head. A bemused expression replaced his habitual grimace. "I see why the Varisian couldn't keep his mouth shut."

Ana giggled into her shoulder. His eyes trailed from her shoulder down to the swell of her bound breasts. Her nipples had flushed purple while she'd been giving head. They hardened under his gaze. His black-eyed gaze locked with hers. "Ana, I offered you punishment. I suggest you accept it."

Ana swallowed. Her saliva was still bitter with the taste of his cum, and her better judgment had long since departed. "O-okay."

He leaned forward, slipping one hand behind her neck and the other behind her back. He lowered her to the floor. "Don't be scared."

"What if I like it too much?"

His grimace twisted into a wry smile. "Then get used to begging." His lips brushed hers, then the skin of her neck, her breast.

She gasped. After all the pain she'd endured, it was the delicate tease of his teeth on her nipple that nearly broke her. She cried out as he touched and teased her helpless body. She squirmed and strained against the cruel ropes and under his crueler fingers. His tongue. "Please...please..." she panted.

He looked up from between her thighs and licked her juice off his middle finger. "Please what?"

"Please. I need you wreck me. Please," she begged.

He smiled wryly, infuriatingly. "You're a real poet, Ana."

She glowered at him. "Fuck y-" Her curse turned to a pleasured cry as he pushed into her. She grunted and moaned senselessly, her hips rocking on their own. Her writhings increased their violence. Even after she came in a shuddering orgasm, he didn't stop filling her.

He turned her over on her stomach, grabbed her full hips, and penetrated her from behind. He never left ass or vagina empty. Starting with his fingers, he worked up to a fist. She screamed and screamed around his dick, his fingers, his fist sending her sacrum into uncontrollable spasms.

He held her in his lap and crushed her bound, writhing body against him. He railed her in the ass, the heel of his palm working her clit while his fingers stroked inside her. She came. The screaming waves of ecstasy from her Root and Sacral chakras took him with her. He grunted and cursed, filling her ass with his cum.

They shuddered and slumped against each other, breath ragged. Mr. Plugg lifted Ana off of him, scooping her into his arms. He placed her against a wall of the damp, cramped holding cell. She leaned heavily against the solid wood. Her pupiless eyes followed his moonlit outline while she steadied her breath.

He rifled through the pile of his discarded clothing. The first mate didn't put anything on his sweat-slicked body. He unsheathed a dagger.

Blood pounded in her ears, but the last of her strength had drained away. Ana couldn't run or fight or even stand. She shrank against the corner.

He crouched in front of her, grimacing. Then placed the dagger between his teeth. He held up his other hand, keys jangling. Ana froze. Mr. Plugg unlocked the shackles around her ankles. The open metal clunked to the wooden floor. He removed the dagger from his mouth, raising both hands to either side of his shaved head. "Easy, Ana. I'm not going to kill you. You…," the end of his mouth turned wryly upward, "-you passed."

Her body released the first layers of tension, her position relaxing slightly in the corner of the cell, but her empty stomach still roiled. She gave him the slightest nod.

Mr. Plugg approached with the dagger. The blade glinted in the moonlight and snicked through her bonds. The ropes thunked to the floor, leaving raw skin and bruises all over her arms and chest.

Her freed breathing brought fresh pain to her ribcage. Her deadened limbs erupted into pins and needles piercing every inch of skin. Too drained and leaden to move, Ana hissed and cried out softly.

Then his hands were there. They rubbed at the pins and needles, working blood and feeling back into her limbs. She shut her eyes as the pressure from his hands swept the pins and needles away with broad waves of pain. Her body broke into a cold sweat. She breathed through her clenched teeth.

When Mr. Plugg finished, he sat shoulder-to-shoulder beside her. "You'll be sore for a while, so you'll have a two-day reprieve before you start as the ship's whore."

The ship's whore. That was how Mr. Plugg intended to use her-as a prize and incentive for the rest of the crew. Her roiling gut turned to stone. It was what she'd requested in exchange for her life. It was what she'd auditioned for. But all the reasons in the world couldn't make her reality any less bitter.

Ana dropped her head back against the wooden wall of the cell. She stared up into the darkness of the heavy ceiling. The rope that had held her for torture still hung from the rafters like an empty noose. It swayed with the gentle roll of the _Wormwood_. They all did.

"I have a request," she said. Her voice was as dry and cracked as wooden tinder.

"Speak and I'll consider it." His voice had cooled from the low, growling, even playful passion it had possessed during their sex. Now it edged back toward the same mirthlessness held in his eyes while he was on duty.

Ana blinked. That was the shell he used for work in the world of these pirates. She would have to acquire one as well for the sake of her sanity, if not survival. "Please, don't let Master Scourge take me."

He turned over his shoulder, black eyes searching her whites. She hugged her exposed sides. His gaze travelled down to the rope burns and bruises over her moon blue skin. She shook her head. "Master Scourge doesn't want sex. He wants to own me." He wanted to break her down until she lost all will and reason.

"You work for me now." Mr. Plugg tucked one wing of her black hair behind her ear. "I won't let him touch you unless you fail me."

His words stripped the last of their shared warmth from her body. She shivered naked against the hard, impassive walls of the cell. He was still prepared to kill her, or worse, let Master Scourge break her if she gave him the chance. Her hands curled into fists. She wouldn't fail, especially not in mutiny.


End file.
